Give him back to me, or so help me god
by Eva7673
Summary: …aka that time Ross took Tony's Spidy-son, and Tony was 39237234% not okay with it.
1. The Fallout

It's that time of year again…the feels are flowing….and I'm BAAAAAAAAACK! So this fic is **NOT** Infinity War compliant. It is a sequel to my initial Peter and Tony fic, and will as such be dealing with the events in that fic..

…as I am not even remotely dealing with Infinity War.

So I am going to remain in a state of constant denial for the next year.

HAPPY READING!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 1. THE FALLOUT**

* * *

"For the last time," Tony slouched back in his chair, clasping two fingers around the bridge of his noise in an attempt to ease the cluster headache he could feel mounting behind his eyes. "Err, no."

"And for the last time, Mr. Stark," Ross glowered across the courtroom, his eyes burning. _"That is not your decision_."

"It's my signature," Tony shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets in an attempt to appear calm. Even in his pockets they quivered with rage. "So it kind of is."

They had been going round and round in circles with the same argument for just over three days now. Ever since Ross had had the nerve to show up at the Compound with the latest version of the Accords, ready for Tony to sign. The changes made to the accords had been a joke. Ross's presence in the Compound, where he had so nearly cost Tony more than he could afford to pay, was not.

If Steve hadn't held him back Tony would have beaten the man to death. He was sure of it. And not even a little repentant.

He hadn't though. What he had done was hurl the accords into Ross's face and refuse - vehemently, and colourfully - to ever sign so long as Ross was the one running things.

Ross had filed a law suit the next day.

A voice above them both cut Ross off before he could reply – or hurl himself over the desk and strangle the life out of Tony. With the colours he was turning, Tony thought he had about a fifty fifty chance with either.

"Mr. Stark-"

Tony swivelled his chair to glance up at the judge.

"Yes, Honey-pie."

The judge levelled Tony a cool look. "Secretary Ross raises a valid breach of contract – you made a formal agreement to sign-"

"-I made an agreement to sign _before_ he tried to kill us." Tony cut the older man off, pulling up in his chair to stare up at the judge fully. "A _tentative_ agreement at best, that was dependant on certain amendments that Mr. Ross has not yet made."

" _Secretary_ Ross."

For the first time since they had called the session in order, almost five hours ago, Tony looked up and met Ross's eyes. The rage that had been quietly stirring in his chest throbbed, and then expanded. Gnawing through his organs, and then out to his very fingertips and toes. God those fingertips ached. Ached to claw those eyes out where the man stood –

"Not for very much longer."

The words were not a shout – in fact they were softer than anything Tony had said so far – but they echoed. They seemed to rebound off of every wall, and catch in the very air. For a moment not even one of the hundred people room moved.

Ross found his voice first.

"You recounted your agreement – an agreement that kept _you_ from being named an enemy of the state alongside the rest of the criminals you now house!" He screamed across the room, launching to his feet despite the warning hands of his legal council, a vein in his forehead throbbing with his every word.

"At your request!" Tony thundered, on his feet as well, his chair – and poor attempts to seem unperturbed – abandoned. "And the request of congress!" He rounded on the judge. "And for the record – _again_ – I did not recount my agreement to sign the Accords. When the amendments that were agreed to by the United Nations – which actually allow my team and I some basic, human rights – are made, and I am satisfied with them, I will sign." He said, his voice rising to barrel right over the scoff that Ross let out. Tony fixed his eyes back on Ross, and again he had the fight the almost nauseating urge to launch across the tables that separated them and beat the life out of the other man with whatever he could find. "What I said was that I will _never_ sign it, no matter how many amendments are made, while his name is still attached."

Ross rounded on the judge – his face now a wash with vibrant colours as he fought to hold onto what little decorum he had left.

"That – _that_ _right there_ – is a blatant breach of contract-"

Tony cut him off before he could really begin – he'd heard enough. He was done. He was so done. "You want to talk about a _breach of contract_ – you sent an army to our doorstep!" Tony roared, and the veil of whispers that had fallen over the crowd in the last few minutes ceased. Even the judge fell silent. Tony barely noticed. His eyes were fixed on Ross – but as he stared the man faded away, and a small body, lying face down on an embankment, took his place. The sight, even two whole months later, threatened to bring Tony to his knees. "You attacked _us_ in an effort to incite a rage that might give you the leverage you needed to pass the Accords how they are – to give you complete control over us, and anyone like us!" The small body disappeared from behind Tony's eyes, and Ross came back into focus. A loathing, deep and _guttural_ , settled in Tony's chest. It was so heavy that for a moment it threatened to suffocate him. "Well congratulations Mr. Ross, you've incited rage." Tony's roar tapered off – swallowed whole by that pit of loathing in his chest that felt like it just might consume him. Completely. His words, now, were barely above a murmur – but the courtroom was silent. Every ear attuned to Tony. "And it is going to _burn_ you."

Ross was trembling now – his own fury clawing to be let out. "Is that a threat!?" He bellowed across the room. He took a step towards Tony, but several of his officers, who had been called to give statements, pulled him back. Ross's eyes never left Tony's. " _Is that a threat!?_ "

Tony's feet moved to take a step forward as well – the cameras flashing all around suddenly meaning very little to him. He was going to kill him. He was going to beat the man to death with his _bare hands_ , right here, right now and be done with–

Something latched onto Tony, and held him in place. Tony tried to pry himself free – needed to reach Ross. He needed to _feel him bleed_ –

"Tony – _Tony_." A voice cut through Tony's blind rage. The hands that had seized the lapels of his suit shook him roughly. After a moment Rhodey filtered into view. He was leaning over the fence that separated the crowd from the panel, holding Tony in place with steel like fingers. "Easy." He hissed, his face inches from Tony. "You need to take a breath." Tony did – and the screaming in his lungs let up. God it felt good. How long had he been holding his breath? Rhodey pulled Tony towards the fence that separated them, cutting off his line of sight to Ross. "Easy, Tony." He said again – staring at Tony intently, watching him gulp down another few breaths.

Across the courtroom Ross was receiving a similar talking too by not only the soldiers around him – but his council and the judge as well. He was still shouting, his arms waving wildly even as his men tried to calm him.

"-is that a _threat_?! He can't-"

"Should it be?" Tony bellowed over his indignant cries. The man's eyes shot back to him. Rhodey, now apparently satisfied that Tony was no longer going to launch himself across the courtroom, let go and the both of them turned back to face Ross. "Are we not threatened by you? Or very lives threatened by you?" Tony asked, fighting to keep his tone in check – to keep everything in check. He would not let Ross win. He would _not_ let Ross win-

"As I have already stated, I had no hand in the unfortunate attack on the Compound-" Ross bellowed, pulling his eyes away from Tony and turning to stare up the judge. Just as well. Tony wasn't sure what he would have done if the man had had the nerve to lie right to his face.

"We have evidence that proves your men were behind the breach. Witness statements, specialised gear collected at the Compound – a soldier himself who _admitted_ it for Christ sake!" Tony said, his voice rising again. Rhodey's hand settled on Tony's back, resting over his left shoulder blade – out of sight from the rest of the courtroom. It wasn't restrictive, or gripping, it was just there. A constant weight that kept him in the courtroom, and not _by that damn lake_ –

"My men acted of their own volition!" Ross's voice echoed through the room. "A grievous violation of my trust – and their governments'." He said, shooting a look around the crowd behind him before settling his eyes on Tony. "And that statement was taken was taken under _duress_."

" _Duress_?!" Tony scoffed. "What duress? We asked – he told us."

"If I had a man like Steve Rogers towering over me in the middle of a battle-field, demanding answers, I'd tell him whatever he wanted to hear as well." Ross sneered.

The words hit home.

Ross had started speaking again – bellowing something up at the judge – but Tony couldn't hear him. He'd heard enough.

"-It was not a battle-field," Tony cut Ross off. His words were soft, but somehow they carried – even over Ross's thunderous cries. The courtroom fell silent again. Even Ross turned to stare, confusion leaking into his rage blinded eyes. Tony tore his own eyes away from the man. He couldn't keep looking at him. It hurt. It hurt too much. The idea what his actions had nearly _cost_ –

"It was a _home_."

Not a soul moved in the courtroom at the words – none but Tony.

He pulled away from Rhodey's hand, turning his back to Ross and the judge to look at the crowd instead. It had been a closed court – but even so there were over a hundred eyes staring back at him, and cameras in every corner that broadcasted his every word across the world. He'd felt them over his shoulder for hours now while he argued with Ross and the judge, but he'd never stopped to cast a look at them. Their faces were tight, and pale – their attention solely focused on Tony.

"We've made mistakes," Tony said, looking out over the faces, every single one. "I, and all of the others, are the first to admit that – but made them because, at the time, we thought there was no other way." The crowd watched Tony in rapt silence. Even Rhodey – who was leaning against the railing that separated them, as if not quite sure whether he should vault over and stop Tony himself before he did something he couldn't take back. But he didn't. And Tony didn't stop.

"What we did cost the lives of thousands, and we know that – we live with that as best we can – but we did it to save _billions_." Tony's voice carried across the crowd. "I'm not saying we made the right choices. We were six people when New York happened – well, five people and one god – we made the only choices _we_ could see, but that is the point of this!" Tony threw a hand behind him. To the table set up before the judge where the latest version of the Accords sat – unsigned. "That when aliens fall out of the sky the decision making _isn't_ left to six people – six people who are generally a little busy trying not to be shot or impaled to make a plan beyond living through the next minute, and trying to make sure others do the same. _This_ -" Tony slid over the table he'd been trapped behind for hours and marched towards the Accords, yanking them off of the small table and holding them out for the crowd to see. "This binds us together – our best guns, our best fighters and our best minds, all working together to keep us safe. Because we're not safe." He roared. Pale faces stared back at him. "We're not safe." He murmured, sparing the Accords one last glance before throwing them back down on the desk. The entire courtroom jumped at the loud thud. "We don't know what's up there," He said, waving a hand at the roof – and the vast expanse of the universe above it. "But, sooner or later, it is coming." He went on. The pale faces staring at him grew paler. "You need us – and we need _you_. We can't do this alone. Not any of us." Tony heaved in a heavy breath. "What we don't need is him," He threw a hand out towards Ross. The man made as sound – as if he were about to speak – but Tony ploughed on over him. "A man who would strip us of our basic rights, and leash us to his personal agenda." Tony hissed. "And not just us – because it's not just us. It's some of you. It's some of your children." Tony let the words hit home for a moment – because they sure as shit hit home for him. "Anyone who's special or different." He murmured, and before he could even try to stop it, that small, broken body lying face down in the river flashed across his mind again. The next breath he took threatened to choke him. And the sight of that small body refused to leave him. "It the kid at the end of the block – just a kid, whose maybe been given something that everyone else doesn't have, but instead of using his abilities to get on the football team or impress girls, he's out there trying to help." The words were spilling out of Tony before he even knew what he was saying. "He doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't ask for anything. He's just trying to help – because it's the right thing to do." Too many memories flooded through him – all at once. Every meeting. Every trusting smile, and nod. Every damn time Tony had told the kid to _stay out of it_. To be safe – to listen one _goddamn_ time– "Because when the people who can do something _don't_ , when the bad things happen, they happen because of them." Tony paused for a moment. No one spoke. Tony heaved out a sigh, nodding as he raised a hand to jab a finger at Ross. "Ross will take us, if you let him, he'll take that kid – that kid whose just trying to do the right thing." Even saying the words nearly gutted him. "He'll take you, and your kids. He'll leash them, if he thinks that they can help him, or he'll put them down if he doesn't. _This_ -" Tony waved a hand down at the Accords on the table in front of him, "-how it is now – this isn't unity. It's dictatorship – and he's running the show." Tony said, nodding back over at Ross. "No." Tony shook his head. "No." He murmured, taking one last look out over the silent crowd. "He's out – or we are."

A deafening silence met the end of his words. It fell over the courtroom like a mist, cloaking every single person in the room.

Again, Ross found his voice first.

"You can't say that-" He said, his tone curt, but level. His eyes had never left Tony's face as he spoke – and he didn't look away now. His eyes bore into Tony's, as if he could hollow Tony from the inside out without ever touching him. Tony refused to give to much mind to the irony that the man almost had – without even knowing it.

"Just did." Tony threw over his shoulder as he slid back over his desk, and sank into his plush chair with a flourish. "You're out – or we are." Tony threw his hands up in an animated shrug. "Oh, look at that, I said it again."

" _Stark_ -"

"-I think we'll adjourn for today – we can pick this up tomorrow." The judge's voice boomed across the courtroom, cutting Ross off before he could spark another row. The just shot a stern look down at both parties. "Now both of you get out." He growled, slamming his gavel with more force than was really necessary. "Before I kick both of you out of my court room."

The room erupted with noise. The crowd were on their feet. Yelling up at the judge, and each other – journalists screaming questions and civilians demanding answers.

Tony pulled away from the desk at once, spinning to face Rhodey and get the _fuck out_ , but before he could even begin to shove his way through the mob that was forming at the fence, Ross was beside him.

He caught Tony's arm roughly and pulled him close.

Ross's words were soft, too soft to be overheard, but they slid sickeningly along Tony's spine. "I can see that this all a game of smiles an empty words for you Stark, but-"

"It's not a game." Tony hissed, yanking his arm free and turning the rest of the way towards Ross. A few members of the crowd seemed to have noticed them – and watched with rapt attention – but the majority were still yelling at someone. Tony moved a little closer, pausing inches from Ross. "You nearly took something you would not have been able to give back." Tony murmured. "This is not a game. It's not a discussion or a debate." Tony's voice dipped, and that gnawing need to reach out and _tear at_ the man across from his returned. "I warned you, when you first came to me about the Accords, that if you crossed me I would _ruin_ you." Tony tapped a soft hand on Ross's crisp suit jacket. "This is the end of you, Mr. Ross."

"You _can't_ do this-"

" _You_ did this, Ross." Tony cut him of venomously. "You brought all this down on yourself when you came to _my house_." Tony paused, taking a moment to glance around at the crowd and pull himself back together. He didn't look back over at Ross when he started speaking again – instead he kept his eyes fixed on the crowd, waving to a few familiar faces and throwing up his signature peace sign when cameras flashed in their direction. His words, however, were cold and empty. "You should be grateful – had that night ended a different way, you any I would not be here." He said, taking great care to keep his words out of prying ears, but loud enough for Ross to catch every one. "We would be somewhere else. Alone." His eyes darted to Ross for just a moment. "And you would not have been leaving."

* * *

 _His out, or we are._

Tony's words echoed out of the phone Peter was clutching beneath his desk. Ned was watching over his shoulder - neither of them paying any mind to their Spanish teacher who was still speaking in rapid Spanish to Flash at the front of the class.

"Best mic drop _ever_ ," Ned whispered, eyes wide as he watched Tony march out of the courtroom, a flurry of reporters trailing after. Peter had to agree. With his head held high, and his signature smirk firmly in place, Tony was in his element. Even with hundreds of people swarming about him, screaming and shouting as he pushed his way through, he looked untouchable.

Something deep in Peter sunk at the sight of the man.

"Yeah." He murmured, locking the phone and shoving it back in his pocket with swift fingers as their Spanish teacher started to move between the students.

"That was so awesome." Ned grinned, leaning back over to Peter as soon as the teacher had passed them. "Like shit, he _told him_."

Peter nodded, his eyes fixed on his worksheet – but not really seeing the different verb formations he was supposed to be working on. "Yeah."

"What's going on with all of that?" Ned asked, clearly trying to keep his voice down – and failing. His excitement flooded through every word. Peter didn't ask him to keep his voice down. His motivation to do anything else than stare blankly at his sheet was quickly dwindling. "I mean are the other Avengers back at the Compound? Are they on the run again?" Ned grasped onto Peter's arm, suddenly alarmed. "Are _you_ going on the run?!"

"What?" That brought Peter out of his daze. "No, Ned." He gave a small shrug. "And I don't know."

Ned stared at him blankly. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know." Peter said again, leaning further onto the table. Trying to make his brain focus on his sheet – and failing. "I haven't spoken to any of them since it happened."

"But what about Mr. Stark?" Ned asked, sparing a look down at his own sheet when their Spanish teacher passed by again, and threw him a sour look. "Surely he knows what's going on."

Peter's stomached twisted.

"Probably." He muttered. Ned looked up at him – his hearing not quick enough to catch Peter's words. "I haven't spoken to him either." Peter said, a little louder.

"What?" Ned asked, his face scrunching up in confusion. " _Why_?"

Peter tried to shrug again, but the movement caught in his tense shoulders and shot a bolt of pain through his back. "I called but – he just–" Peter cut off, shaking his head in a way that he hoped looked casual. If the growing line between Ned's brows was any indication, he was failing at that too. "He hasn't called back."

"Maybe you should call again?" Ned suggested, "I mean his a busy guy, he might have just forgotten-"

"-I _have_ called again." Peter snapped – and immediately regretted it. Ned's eyebrows shot up. Peter heaved out a heavy breath, his eyes falling down to the pen he was fiddling with in his lap. "I've called him a dozen times. And Happy a dozen more." He said. "I called Stark Industries and his personal assistants – all three – and _nothing_." He threw the pen down onto the table forcefully. It ricocheted off the desk and spun across the room, colliding loudly with the wall by the door and splintering. Spraying blue ink across the bland, white paint. Everyone looked up, and the whole room fell silent.

"Who threw that!?"

Peter and Ned ducked their heads.

Their Spanish teacher marched across the room to the students sitting closest to the now blue wall. Peter waited for her to start yelling before he spoke again.

"He's avoiding me."

Ned's face fell – all excitement fading away. "Why?"

"I don't know." Peter said, but his heart wasn't in the words. "I don't know."

He had a sinking feeling that he knew _exactly_ why Tony wasn't returning his calls.

Ned stared at him for a moment longer before he leaned over and bumped his shoulder, shooting him a wide grin. "You patrolling tonight?"

Peter's eyes drifted back to his worksheet. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Yeah," Peter said, moving back to start on his sheet, only to realize that he was now without a pen. And he hadn't brought another. He shoved the sheet away, frustration taking hold again, and ran his fingers through his hair, then over his face. God. He was tired. "I've got a heap homework for history and that physics quiz on Friday so – you know."

Ned nodded slowly. "Well I'm totally around tonight so I am down – if you go out just call me and I'll log on." He said, his excitement mounting again. Peter couldn't bring himself to dampen it, despite how miserable he felt. "I found this epic as vintage police radio and I've just finished tuning it, so we're good to go."

Peter nodded and tried his best to summon a smile. Again, he failed.

"Cool."

* * *

So…our boys are not okay. And I'll be honest…they're not getting any better any time soon.

WHUMP IS COMING!

But so are the good feels, because god our boys need it.

IT'S 10 MINUTE HUG TIME!...

…well almost.

I will hopefully have the next chapter up in a couple of days – I have a plan (sort of) and lots of uni work to procrastinate doing…all things conducive to writing.


	2. The Call

You guys have been amazing with responses…it just means so much. So much! Thank-you! But without any further adieu I present chapter two…

Disclaimer: I did forget to add this to the last chapter, but I clearly don't own any of this. Also any mistakes (of which I'm sure there are many) are mine – I don't have a beta reader so I'm pretty sure a lot sneaks through unfortunately.

* * *

 **Chapter 2. THE CALL**

* * *

There was something about New York when it was upside-down. Something that, no matter how many times Peter hung head first from the ledge of a building, he couldn't quite wrap his head around. The buildings always looked as if they broken out from the ground for the sole purpose of clawing at the sky below. Occasionally scratching a silver peak against the horizon but never really touching the infinite black chasm.

The people, too, were different. There were no motives when the world was upside-down. No meaning at all. Only the desperate need to keep from falling.

A soft crackle sounded in Peter's left ear.

"Guy-in-the-chair to Spider-man." A rushed voice cut across the comm. "You copy Spider-man?"

With a small huff Peter began to untangle himself from the web he had strung up from the tallest ledge he could find on 47st.

" _Spider-man_!?"

"Yeah – I copy, Ned."

Ned's choked voice crackled across the comm.

" _Dude_ ," He hissed. "Code name! Come on."

"You know it's only Mr. Stark who actually listens to this channel, yeah?" Peter said, a yawn butchering the last few words. "And he knows who you are."

"Okay, gonna to skip right past Tony Stark _actually_ knowing who I am – because that's just too awesome to even compute right now–" Ned babbled, furious typing cutting across the comm. every now and again. Ned had set up his own microphone, which they'd found at a thrift store on 29th, but it was scratchy at best. Peter had to admit it was kind of soothing, though. Having Ned in his ear these last few weeks had eased the anxious pit that had taken up residence his chest since the attack on the Compound. Or, at least, eased a little. Peter couldn't deny that the pit was still there. And growing. "But the code names are cool!" Ned's voice cut across the comm. again. "And what if, like, some dude hacks into your server and starts listening?"

Peter laughed outright – surprising himself for a second. "What, like you are?"

" _Exactly_!" Ned shouted – and then the word sunk in. "Wait – no." His voice crackled over the comm. Peter pulled himself up onto the roof, and shot a glance over the city.

It was quiet tonight. Or as quiet as Queens ever got. He'd already broken up a fight in the Subway, caught a pick-pocket-er and helped a girl find her phone – which she'd left in Chinese restaurant in Middle Village. That had been kind of cool. She'd bought him dumplings after.

Ned's voice crackled back through the mask. "What's up with you?" He asked. "You haven't moved in like the last half-hour."

"I know. I'm just tired." Peter said, stretching up on his toes and winding his arms behind his back until his shoulders cracked. "Mr. Prichard had me in school at six to make up for the calculus quiz I missed last week." He shooks his arms and legs out gingerly.

"Eww."

"Yeah."

Peter moved up to perch on the ledge of the building, scanning over what he could make out of Sunnyside – and finding not very much. It was inching towards midnight on a Tuesday, and even in the city (and boroughs) that never slept, people tended to keep to themselves and wander home at a semi-reasonable hour on Tuesdays. A couple of people were spilling out of a bar down the street, on the corner of Greenpoint and 45th, and he could hear the distinctive thump of a dribbled basket ball, the tell-tale excited shouts of a game, at a small park a block over – but other than that the streets were pretty deserted.

"Well nothing particularly exciting is coming over the scanner," Ned's voice echoed through the mask. "You wanna call it a night?"

"Ugh," Peter huffed, tilting his head from side to side to ease the stiffness in his neck. Oww. He really needed to stop sleeping in the webbing. "I'll give it twenty more minutes then head home."

With that he pulled himself back to his head, stretched his arms out to the side as far as they would reach in one last attempt to loosen the muscles in his back, and leapt from the building.

Cool air, and the all-consuming sensation of freedom, met him.

He shot a web out at the building across from him and rode it up and over the block onto 46th. He continued along the dark streets. Skipping between launching himself cleanly over blocks at a time, and stopping to swing down onto the sides of the buildings he passed – surveying the peopled still peppered along the sidewalks. No one seemed in need of him, so he kept moving. Bounding towards 48th street, and the cemetery just beyond it.

Ned's voice crackled across the comm. again. "Does Mr. Stark really listen to these?"

Peter shot a web onto a particularly tall brownstone, and launched himself up and over it, onto 49th street. "I don't know." He said, coming to a running stop atop one of the buildings overlooking the cemetery. "He says he doesn't – but sometimes he says stuff that I swear he could only know about if he did, and–"

Peter cut off.

Below him a black sedan had just pulled up by the cemetery gates – which on its own wasn't overly suspicious – but Peter fell silent as he watched a man climb out of the driver's side and step up onto the sidewalk. It was dark, and the man wore a scarf high up on his neck, covering a good portion of his lower face, but Peter could still make him out – even from across the street. He had a buzzed hair cut, military looking on one side, but the other looked as if it had been shaved clean by medical professions in a hurry, and never really grown back. The entire left side of his head was a mess of scars. They twisted wildly along the bare skin there – some disappearing into tuffs of hair that had grown back, and others snaking down onto the man's face. One in particular ran all the way down, and across, the man's cheek.

The sight of him was a little startling – but not what gave Peter pause.

No. Peter _knew_ this man.

He just wasn't sure how.

He'd seen that face before – he was sure of it. It wasn't one he was likely to forget. He just couldn't place him.

What he could place the tingling on the back of his neck as he stared down at the man. That was no muscle stiffness. Anxiety swelled up in Peter's chest.

"-what?!" Ned's voice cut back over the comm. "What's happening?!"

"Not sure." Peter murmured. As he watched the man threw a look over both shoulders and then moved up towards the cemetery gates. Disappearing inside.

Peter followed without a second's hesitation.

"-what have you found?!"

"I don't _know-shh-_ " Peter hissed over the comm. as he leapt over the cemetery fence, landing behind a large tomb-stone and pausing there to watch the man stride down the path – deeper into the forest of graves.

Peter followed him a fair way into the cemetery, ducking behind trees and large gravestones whenever the man cast a glance behind him. Which was often. He was nervous about something – that much was clear – but Peter, no matter how many times he risked a glance over at the man, just could place him.

" _Who_ are you?" Peter murmured, mainly to himself, but Ned's voice crackled across the comm. instantly.

"Who?!" He asked, furious typing sounding in the background. "If you've seen him I can hack the feed and search-"

Between one minute and the next everything clicked into place.

"Ross."

The word slipped out of Peter's mouth like a prayer – caught somewhere between horror and realization.

" _What_!?" Ned's voice thundered across the comm. The sheer volume of it making the crackling a hundred times worse.

"That's where I've seen him before." Peter murmured, sliding closer as the man continued through the cemetery. "He's been at the trial."

Peter – despite how much he'd been trying to seem indifferent – had watched every day of the trial so far. Every minute. And the interviews before it. And both Ross and Tony's every appearance since the attack on the Compound – coffee runs and all.

It was as close as he'd gotten to speaking to Tony in the last couple of months.

At first, in the few days after the attack, Tony hadn't left his side. Literally. Every time Peter woke – and he'd slept a _lot_ in those few days, every inch of him aching and exhausted – the man had been there, either working, sleeping himself, or staring at Peter as if he might disappear any minute. It had been a little disconcerting.

Then the whole 'death' thing came out – and that had been a little _more_ disconcerting.

As far as the details went, Peter really didn't know a whole lot about that night. He didn't remember anything past when the Compound was originally breached, and Tony had been reluctant to tell him any more.

 _You took a nosedive in the lake – drowned for a quick second – then Rhodey and I pulled you out and fixed you up._

The words hadn't exactly cleared everything up, but no matter how much he prodded neither Tony or Rhodey would give him anything else.

Two days after he was given the 'all-clear' by medical – two days in which Tony kept him in Stark Tower still under medical supervision until they were _definitely sure_ he was fine – Peter had been allowed to return home with May, who had reached a whole new level of anxiety when it came to the Spiderman thing, and Tony seemed to drop of the earth altogether.

Peter hadn't worried the first couple of days. It was actually kind of nice to be home. May had hovered, but compared to Tony's anxious need to _always be moving_ , being home with May allowed him to really relax for the first time. And when he had, everything had come crashing down.

He'd died.

He didn't know a lot – but he knew that much. He'd died. The doctors had shown him the x-rays of his chest, pointing out where the fluid that had settled in his lungs as he drowned was quickly disappearing, and which ribs to be mindful of – as some had been broken as he was revived.

Peter wasn't sure exactly how to deal with that – so he'd locked the entire experience up in a box that he hadn't dared to touch yet. A box that was only getting fuller – and harder to keep closed – the longer that Tony avoided him.

He just wanted _answers_. He needed to know what had happened? Why!?

He needed to know why Tony was dodging his calls – what Peter had done wrong.

"Oh my _god_!" Ned's voice screeched. "Was he one of the men that _attacked you_?!"

Peter risked another glance at the man. "No." He said, vaulting over a large headstone and taking cover behind another. "No, I don't think so." The man had left the path now, winding instead through the maze of headstones. "I think he's like Ross's assistant." The man came to a stop beside an older looking headstone. Peter paused behind him, ducking behind a large stone angel. "Or whatever the military version of an assistant is."

"A hit-man." Ned hissed, not missing a beat. They both fell silent for a moment. "What's he doing?"  
Peter shot a quick look over at the man. "…Waiting."

"Waiting for wha-"

A sudden movement just to Peter's right had him diving further behind the stone angel.

"Oh, _shit-_ "

Another man was making his way towards the first. This man was different though. Where the first had pushed through the cemetery with long, thunderous, strides, this man meandered down through the graves. If he had been any more relaxed Peter imaged he would have been whistling.

"What!?" Ned's strained voice shouted into his ear. "What is it? What's happening!? I can't see anything." There was a loud _bang_ – and the distinctive sound of an error message. " _Shitty computer_ -"

"Shh _hhh_." Peter hissed as the new man passed right by the angel he was crouched behind. He needn't have bothered. The man passed him by without even a glance.

"You're early." He called down to the first man, coming to a stop a few feet away from him and leaning casually against a headstone. "We're just unloading the package." He threw a nod in the direction he'd come. Peter threw a look behind him.

Four men were making their way through the dark graveyard – a coffin resting on their shoulders.

Ned's voice crackled over the comm. "If they tip a corpse out of there I am _one hundred percent_ going to spew-"

Peter didn't bother to shush him. His attention had already turned back to the two men ahead of him.

"No problems getting it into the city." Ross's man asked. His voice was scratchy, and painful sounding. As if someone had torn out his vocal cords, dragged them along the road behind a car for a few miles, and then shoved them back in.

"Oh, no." The second man chuckled. Now that he was in front of Peter, Peter could make out his face. He was the other man's complete opposite. While Ross's assistant was scarred and hunched, the second man was handsome and tall. From his crisp collar to his thousand dollar shoes, the man looked like he oozed money and charisma – in equal amounts. "With what we gave her – she slept like the dead."

The second man's lips twisted into a twisted grin.

Peter's eyes snapped back to the coffin that was making its way past where he was crouched.

"I think there's someone alive in there, Ned," Peter whispered, no small amount of horror dripping into the words.

"Oh," Ned murmured, apparently trying to wrap his head around everything that was happening. "Yeah – that's _a lot_ worse." Both of them said nothing as the coffin made its way past Peter. The men baring it carried expensive looking box down to the two men waiting below. When they reached them they placed the coffin on the grass, just in front of the second man's expensive shoes.

Ned's voice finally came back to him. "This is taking a turn from creepy to downright _terrifying_." He said. " _Should_ I call Mr. Stark?"

"What – no." Peter hissed, more forcefully than he really needed to if Ned's sudden silence was anything to go by. "No, Ned. We don't even know what's going on." Peter backtracked, craning his head to see through the stone angel's arms in an attempt to stay out of sight.

"We know they have someone locked in a coffin – _that's something-_ " Ned argued.

"Just-" Peter sighed. "Just wait."

Before Ned could argue any more the men had started speaking again.

"-Money." The second one said – casting a blindly white grin at the other man.

"Not a chance." Ross's man growled. He nodded at the coffin. "Show me the merchandise first."

Peter's heart thudded painfully. Oh god.

The second man threw a glance at the men who had carried the coffin down, giving them a short nod. All at once they moved back to the coffin – running their fingers along the lid and sliding open several seals that were embedded in it.

"What's the matter Knox?" The second man said – his grin growing. "Don't trust me?"

Without any more warning the four men closest to the coffin swung open the lid. Together they reached inside and seized a hold of the small body curled up against the white satin lining. With rough hands they pulled the quivering body free and hurled it at the first man's feat.

For a moment the girl – and it was definitely a girl, she'd been stripped down to her underwear, leaving her almost naked on the frost ridden grass – did nothing. Then she moved. Slowly. Her curtain of long, dark, hair fell away from her face.

And the Scarlet Witch looked up to meet to eyes of Ross's deputy.

"Holy shit." Ned's strangled voice echoed through Peter's mask. "Holy shi-" Peter's heart kicked into overdrive as Ross's assistant reached down and seized a handful of the Witch's hair, pulling her face up so to meet him. Ned was still panicking, his voice shooting to higher and higher pitches. " _Holy shit_!?"

Peter barely heard him. Ross's man was speaking again – and his words rung like bells in Peter's spinning head.

"-where did you pick her up?" Ross's man asked, casting a look over the girl at his feet before shoving her back to the ground. She let out a small groan. Peter's teeth clenched together painfully as he kept himself from calling out.

"Florence." The second man said, taking a seat on a headstone near him, crossing his legs daintily and grinning down at the Witch. "Put up a good fight." He shrugged, casting a pointed look at Ross's man. "Satisfied?"

"Very."

So was Peter. He'd heard more than enough.

He pushed himself up and over the stone angel he was crouched behind and shot a web directly into Ross's man's face. It hit home with a satisfying _whack_ – and then all hell broke loose.

The second man jerked away from the headstone he'd been sprawled across, spilling onto the ground and scrambling away from where Peter at landed just across from him. The second man's four henchmen reacted a lot more quickly.

One was on Peter before he'd even hit the ground – throwing himself across a headstone to catch Peter around the middle before he could plant his feet. The two of them hit the ground, hard, and skidded into a nearby headstone – cracking it in two.

"Shit!" Ned's voice screamed in Peter's ear as he threw the henchmen of – and into another headstone. "Oh my god, what's happening? _Peter_!?"

Peter didn't have time to answer before another man was on him. Peter ducked to his knees, and quick flick of his wrist the man was trapped in a coating of web. Already being spun into the next man – knocking him over like a bowling pin.

Ned's hoots echoed through the mask.

Peter spun wildly, still on his knees. The Scarlet Witch. He'd lost sight of her as soon as he'd hit the ground, and panic soundly pounded in his chest. Christ. He couldn't see her – he couldn't –

A gun cocked and fired just to the left of him.

Peter clenched.

Oh god. He was going to die. Again. He was going to _fail_. _Again_ –

The bullet never hit home – or at least, not in him.

Before Peter could so much as shrink away from the roar of the gun there was a figure in front of him. Bare skin, almost glowing under the moon's heavy light, was crouching over him. A flick of dark.

And then blood.

A spray of scarlet hit Peter right in the mask – misting over his eyes and casting a red hue over the cemetery.

Peter fell back onto the grass, fighting the sudden urge to vomit as he blinked through his blood-splattered lenses. Oh god. _Oh god_.

The gun fired again. This time the bullet hit something else – something red and glimmering that hung in the air.

Peter scrambled up onto his knees. The Scarlet Witch was kneeling just a few inches in front of him – her hands outstretched and _glowing_. In front of her was the last henchman, looming down at the two of them with a gun clenched in his hands.

The hairs on the back of Peter's neck shot up.

"Look _out_!" The words ripped out of his chest, strangled and broken.

The man emptied the rest of his clip at the two of them, and for a moment bullets rained down on them – but each and every one, like the second, hit the red mass that was pulsing, and _growing_ , in the air between them and the man.

Once the last shot had been fired the gun clicked empty, and a silence fell over the cemetery. The man took a shaking step back.

"What the fuck are you?" He whispered. The red glow still shimmering between them reflected in his eyes. Mixing with the terror already settled deep within them.

The Witch barely spared him another glance before twitching her fingers, just slightly, and sending him crashing into the side of a nearby mausoleum. He hit he wall with a dull _thud_ and fell to the grass below – not even twitching.

As quickly as it had appeared, the glowing red right disappeared, and the Witch rounded on Peter – one hand clasped against her side. Blood was oozing out between her bone-white fingers.

Her eyes flashed a vivid red.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

* * *

Tony threw his keys into the sleek silver bowl sitting atop the table beside the front door of the Compound. They slid around the side of the bowl before skidding over the top and cascading to the floor.

Tony watched as they fell. Not moving a muscle.

God, that summed up his day.

He left the keys on the floor – too drained to even bend to the ground and collect them – and started stripping of his suit jacket, slipping his arms out of the silk lined sleeves and pulling the whole thing off of his back. He dumped that on the floor on top of the keys.

He'd been stuck in the courtroom for another nine hours today – majority of which he'd spent listening to Ross scream that yesterday's impromptu speech from be removed from testimony. Then scream a little more about Tony's breach of contract, and even the Accords themselves. His leniency. How he'd _compromised_.

God Tony needed a drink. And a hatchet.

Not in that order.

He wandered into the open kitchen, not bothering to flip on the light, and pulled open the fridge. He'd reached the point of hunger where you really weren't hungry anymore – and the food inside just made him queasy. A small movement in the darkness to his right had him letting out yelp and staggering away from the open fridge.

"Jesus, Cap." Tony breathed, his eyes falling on Rogers as the taller man stepped into the small light cast by the still open fridge door. "You been waiting in the dark to scare the shit out of me, or something?" Tony sighed, stepping back to the fridge mainly so he'd have something to look at that wasn't Rogers.

"No," Steve said quickly, throwing an arm out to the open glass door behind him – which led out to what was left of the deck. "I was out the back. Just heard you pull in."

"Lights, Fri," Tony said, slamming the fridge door closed and opting to open the nearest cupboard instead in the hope of finding something eatable that didn't make his stomach churn. Soft light spread across the kitchen.

"A bit past your bedtime, isn't it Cap? Tony grumbled. In all honesty he'd stayed in the city longer than he'd needed to, setting himself up with a hoodie and a back cap in a dilapidated diner just inside Hell's Kitchen, hoping to avoid this very conversation.

"I wanted to hear how it went." Steve said, leaning up against the only counter left in the spacious kitchen. The rest had been too damaged to be salvaged. Renovations after the attack had been moving steadily – but vast majority of the Compound was still under construction, meaning that Tony and the other inhabitants were far closer on a daily basis than he would have liked.

"Then turn on the TV." Tony murmured, pulling a loaf of bread from on top of the microwave and moving towards the opposite end of the counter, as far as he could get from Steve. "I'm sure it's on every channel by now."

Steve hesitated a moment. "It is." He finally nodded. Throwing a glance at the TV behind him. His eyes were back to Tony a second later. He paused again. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

Things with the Cap had been…strained. He was trying. Tony could see he was trying. He'd sided with Tony the night of the attacked, and after everything went down he'd stayed by Tony's side as he'd rushed Peter to a hospital and set up in the waiting room for the longest night of his life. He'd called May when Tony's hadn't been able to quell the shaking in his fingers long enough for him to pick up his phone. And after he'd picked up the pieces. The renovations were sailing largely due to him. He'd taken point on the whole re-build, everything from the construction workers to the design. Tony had video proof that he spent majority of his day outside with the builders – literally _lending a hand_ in helping get some of the more damaged buildings off the ground, which Tony couldn't deny he was eternally thankful for. God knows he barely had enough time to catch a couple of hours of sleep these days before he was being summoned to somewhere or someone. He knew Cap wanted to do more too – but with the team on lockdown at the Compound there wasn't a lot more to be done. They really were getting along. Really.

But the unspoken elephant in the room sometimes felt like it was sitting on Tony's chest when the two of them were alone.

Barnes.

Neither of them had brought him up – and Tony was beginning to think neither ever would. It was an odd balance that they'd formed, but it was working. Neither of them were falling.

"Me?" Tony shrugged, twisting the plastic bread bag open and reaching in for two slices. "Chipper. Tip-top-"

"-Tony."

The word wasn't loud. Not even really loud enough to cut Tony off – but he stopped speaking none the less.

Tony threw his two slices on bread down on the bench.

"What do you want, Steve?"

Steve intertwined his arms across his chest, his eyes never leaving Tony. "I want to make sure that you're okay." He said, heaving out a breath. "God knows I'd be inching to hit something if I had to spend a few _minutes_ with the man – let alone hours."

"Hey – I was all for violence when he turned up here." Tony said, pulling open the cutlery draw beneath the cool bench top and pulling out a butter knife. "You're the one who couldn't let me kick the crap out of him."

"We can't stoop to his level, Tony." Steve moved to the fridge Tony had abandoned, swung it open and pulled out the large jar of raspberry jam resting in the door. He set in down in front of Tony. "That's not how we win this."

Tony stared at the jar for just a second before he scooped it up and yanked off the lid. "How do we win this?"

Steve's eyes fell for the first time. "I don't know."

Footsteps coming down the hall saved Tony from having to reply.

Rhodey stepped into the kitchen a moment later – his eyes widening just slightly at the sight of Steve and Tony at the bench. Tony dropped his eyes before Rhodey could shoot him a look. He was far too tired to deal with any of this.

No sooner had Rhodey stepped further into what was left of the kitchen then more footsteps could be heard echoing down the hall. Sam and Clint clambered into the room a second later.

Christ. He was _definitely_ too tired for this.

Tony ignored Clint and Sam, who had respectively situated atop the counter and on the only other free stool, for the moment, turning his attention to Rhodey instead.

"You shipping out, Pooh-bear?" Tony asked, scooping out no small amount of jam and spreading it across the two slices of bread.

"Not tonight." Rhodey said, leaning over to steal a slice of bread out of the still open bag and biting into it as it was.  
His words caught Tony off guard, his knife pausing above the jam soaked slices. "I thought you had a summit thing-y in DC in the morning?"

"Yeah – I pulled out a few days ago." Rhodey shrugged, still gnawing on the bread. "They'll survive without me."

Tony barely held in a huff. Barely. "So can I." He said, shooting a look over at Rhodey. "Just for the record."

Rhodey glanced up at him, raised his brows, and proceeded to shove the rest of his slice of bread into his mouth. "Hmm." He murmured.

"I don't need to be baby-sat." Tony scowled, letting the hand that was holding the butter knife rest against the table as he used the other to gather up a jam soaked slice and bring it to his lips. "I am an adult. Quite a capable one too." He chomped down on his own piece of bread. Careful to enunciate every word so that Rhodey got a clear view of the red, gooey mess that his bite was being reduced to. "Genius. Millionaire. Can conjure a pretty sweet suit of armour, with some pretty sweet firing power, at the flick of a wrist. Perhaps you've heard of it-"

"The man tried to kill us, Tony." Clint cut in from where he was perched on the bench just beside Steve. "We all need to have someone watching our backs right now."

"Speaking of babies," Sam stared before Tony could snap at Clint to get off the bench. Or push him himself. "I haven't seen the kid about for a while. What's with that?" Everyone's eyes found their way to Tony again. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah, Tony," Rhodey's firm voice echoed in the otherwise silent room. " _What's with that_?"

Tony shot him a cool stare.

"The kid is fine." He said sternly. Taking a vicious bite out of his slice of bread.

"Really? You know that? You've checked on him-" Rhodey went on, completely ignoring Tony's stony looks. Tony went cut him off, but Rhodey ploughed on over him. "-Personally."

That cut Tony's reply short.

Tense silence fell over the room.

As per usual Clint broke it – with a sledgehammer. "I'm sensing a little bit of tension." He drawled, casting looks between Rhodey and Tony. The others were cautiously doing the same.

Tony threw his half eaten slice of bread back on the bench.

"No, you're right." He said, flippantly. "I should definitely invite him over – because that ended so well last time."

Steve's confusion expression softened. "That wasn't your fault Tony-"

"I asked him to come out here, and he got hurt." Tony said. "He got-"

"Yeah, he did get hurt." Rhodey cut in. His stern tone so much better than Tony's. Damn him. "But cutting him out now isn't going to fix that."

"I'm not _cutting him out_." Tony finally snapped, slamming the hand still holding the butter knife down onto the bench with a satisfying _thwack_. "Happy checks in with May every few days, and the school every week. I've got an alert on him, on my server, so that any street cameras that catch a glimpse of him get sent through to me – and his suit sends every bit of data it collects to my personal server. Everything." Tony thundered in a single breath, leaving him panting. "What time he goes out, what time he gets home. Where he goes. Who he meets. What he does. What he and his little friend talk about when he hacks into my comms. Everything."

Another silence fell over the room.

Again Clint broke it. "So essentially you're stalking him."

Tony growled in Clint's direction, but didn't reply. He really had no comeback for that.

Rhodey saved him from having to find one.

"What about him, Tony?" Rhodey asked. "You can't just leave the kid out in the dark."

"It's not like I can just call him. Or turn up at his place." Tony said, meeting Rhodey's searching gaze head on. "Ross has subpoenaed my phone records – and not just mine, all Stark Industrial personal – you know that." He scooped the sopping mess that was left of his slice of bread and hurled it into the trash. "And I can barely leave this glorified crater without the paparazzi all over my ass – none of us can." H cast a look around the kitchen. "Pretty sure the press would have field day if I got caught chatting with some random fourteen-year-old."

"He's fifteen."

Tony's hand, which was still clutching the butter knife, snapped back up – pointing the steel threateningly in Clint's direction.

He threw in down on the counter a moment later.

"He still has a life. School. Family. Friends." Tony hissed. "A future." His voice went hollow. The anger that had seized him a moment before suddenly fled, and he was left even more exhausted then before. "All of that goes away if Ross finds him."

Another silence fell – this one stretching long enough for Tony to shove the jar of jam back inside the fridge and throw what remained of the loaf of bread back on top of the microwave.

"Fine." Sam finally spoke up, pointing a finger over at Tony. "But once we've sorted all this shit out, he's coming over. He beat me two out of three in our last spar, and that just can't stand. I have a reputation uphold. Can't be loosing to little punks in my own _goddamn_ house-"

"Sir," F.R.I.D.A.Y. cut Sam of mid-rant. "One of the pre-prescribed search-alerts have been tripped on Mr. Parker's mobile."

"Christ." Clint barked out a laugh, "You're monitoring the kid's phone as well."

"Shut-up." Tony snapped. "Which one, Fri?" He asked, running a hand over his stinging eyes. God he needed to get some sleep. "I swear to god, if he's _googling_ how to hack his suit again I am going to blast 80's pop through the internal speakers for a week."

"He is not, Sir."

Tony threw his head back and smacked his hands down onto the bench.

"Then what's he googling?"

F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s response was instant – and stripped Tony of every last vestige of exhaustion.  
" _How to sow up a bullet wound_ , sir."

Tony's chest hollowed. "Call him." The words tore out of his throat before he'd really thought them through. Before he'd thought anything beyond _no_. No. "Call him right now."

* * *

"Sorry-" Peter breathed, the word spilling out of his mouth as he pushed through the front door of the apartment – kicking it open with his foot and helping the Scarlet Witch in ahead of him, accidentally brushing against her still bleeding side in the process. "So sorry."

Ned was in the lounge-room waiting for them. He shot up as they stumbled inside. His eyes widened, and then zeroed in on the still dripping wound on the Witch's side.

"Oh my god," Ned screeched, " _Oh my god_ -"

Peter cut him off before he could spiral into full hysteria. "Ned – the first aid kit." Ned eyes moved from staring blankly at the growing red stain beneath the Witch's fingers, to staring blankly at Peter. "Get the first aid kit – in the cupboard-" Peter said again, pulling the Witch through the kitchen and lounge and into his bedroom. May wasn't due home from her shift at the hospital for another few hours – but Peter wasn't ready to risk her having a quiet night and getting off early only to find an Avenger bleeding out in her living room. She was no _not_ okay with the Spiderman thing as it was, and Peter wasn't ready to add any more fuel to that particular argument.

Ned was nodding at dizzying speed. "-above the mirror in the bathroom, right." He stumbled from the living room in the direction of the bathroom "On it."

Peter maneuvered himself and the Witch the rest of the way through his bedroom door, coming to a stop on the floor by his bed and lowering her the rest of the way to the floor. She'd managed to stay on her feet – technically – their entire trek home, but as the blocks slid by, and her wound continued to bleed steadily, she'd become more and more unsteady. She let out a low hiss as she sank onto her knees, her hands clenching into fist.

Peter's hands flapped about in the air around her – not quite sure what to do. "I'm sorry-" He murmured again. He'd been saying the words over and over as they made their way to the apartment – so much that he really wasn't sure what he was sorry for anymore. Sorry he'd gotten her shot. Yeah – he was definitely sorry about that. Sorry he wasn't sure exactly what to do now he had. Yeah. He was sorry about that, too. Sorry he'd messed up and nearly got himself, and her, killed.

Yeah. He was sorry for that a lot these days.

Ned stumbled back into the room – his hands empty.

"Peter-"

Peter was on his feet already, moving to the door.

"What – what is it?"

Ned turned and hightailed it back into the bathroom, and Peter followed. Spilled across the bench was every single piece of first aid equipment that he and May owned. It really wasn't a lot. Ned snatched up a packet of jumbo band aides.

"Ugh, I don't really – I mean – I don't think that these are going to work." He held them out to Peter, who took them only to throw them back down on the bench. Ned was right. He scanned over the rest of the bench but there was nothing even remotely close to what he assumed they needed.

"Right." Peter breathed, suddenly feeling very lightheaded. He yanked off the mask and ran a hand through his hair – only to realize that his hand was soaked in blood, and leaving scarlet streaks across his face and hair. Oh god. "What else do we have?"

"Uh," Ned glanced around, clearly panicking. He jumped at something sitting on the sink and held it out to Peter. "Floss?"

Peter gaped at the small container. " _Floss_?" He repeated – his voice hitting a pitch that he did not know his voice could hit.

"Yeah, floss," Ned said, his words spilling out of his mouth so quickly that even Peter was having trouble catching them. "They use it in movies all the time-"

"What movies?!"

"I don't know!" Ned yelped, dropping the floss to the floor and bringing his hands up to rest against either side of his head, as trying to keep it from exploding. "Don't yell at me, I'm _very stressed-_ "

Peter held out a steadying hand. Or at least he hoped it looked steady. He could feel it quivering like a leaf – but god he hoped Ned couldn't notice. "I'm sorry-" He said, sucking in a large breath. "I'm sorry."

Ned did not take a breath of his own. He continued on the upwards spiral to hysteria, "-this situation is very _stressful_! I think it's time to call Mr. Stark-"

That suggestion helped Peter find his voice. "No _–_ " He said, voice hard. "I can handle this – we can handle this-"

"We cannot handle this-" Ned stressed, watching as Peter pulled out his phone from the special pocket in the suit and started typing. "What are you doing!? _Are Googling this_!?"

Peter looked up from the screen as it loaded.

"Do you have a better idea?"

Ned's eyes had widened to the point that Peter was a little worried they might pop out of their sockets altogether.

" _No_!" Ned cried, sinking down to sit on lid of the toilet seat.

"Okay – apparently the dentil floss thing is a thing." Peter said, scrolling through the sites breathlessly. Oh god. Oh _god._ "Or just normal thread – I think we have that. May has a sowing kit – somewhere – if I – _shit_!"

Before Peter could do anything more than _begin_ to wrap his head around their shit storm of a situation the phone began to ring. Peter let go of it as the vibration startled him, and it clattered across the bathroom tiles.

Tony's name flashing up in bold letters.

Peter and Ned glanced at each other.

"I think we should answer it-" Ned started, his eyes still at risk of jumping out of his skull, but before Peter could make a decision the phone shorted – a long stream of code flashing over the screen – and then answered itself.

Tony's voice flooded across the line before Peter had really grasped what was going on.

"Peter?" He demanded, booming from the phone on loud-speaker. " _Peter_ -"

Peter's brain short-circuited.

"Mr. Stark?" He said slowly, his brain having more trouble that it really should have keeping up with what was happening. Though considering what had happened tonight – finding the Scarlet Witch, nearly being shot, the _Scarlet Witch being shot_ and now Tony calling him – he really should have expected that his brain would just cut out at some point.

" _Hi._ " Tony's voice echoed, even through a phone Peter could make out the fury dripping from it. "What are you to?"

Peter's brain was still not up to computing words. It had gotten as far as _Tony was calling him_ – Tony was _actually_ calling him – and no further.

" _What_?" Peter breathed down at the phone, his eyes meeting Ned's again. He looked no closer to understanding _any of this_ – and inches away from puking.

"Doing anything fun?" Tony's voice rang out again – not even leaving a second for Peter to answer. " _Googling anything interesting_?"

Quite suddenly, and jarringly, everything snapped into place.

"Oh." Was Peter's genius reply. Yeah. Ned definitely looked like he was going to puke now.

" _Oh_." Tony thundered over the phone. "We have been over this kid, if you are hurt you go to a hospital, _or me-_ "

Ned was rapidly turning paler. "-no, this isn't what it looks like – sounds like – I dunno-" He stammered, eyes wide as they stared at Peter.

Peter barely noticed. An all-consuming rage had come over him at the sound of that voice – that voice he'd been practically begging to hear for months now –

" _You_!?" Peter roared into the phone. Ned jumped to far backwards that he slammed into the bathroom counter. Scattering items from the first aid kit across the floor as he stared, dumbfounded at Peter. Tony must have been doing to same from across the phone because, for the first time since Peter had met the man, he didn't have a come back. "Come to you?" Peter screamed, his fury only growing with each word. "Care to share the secret of how to do that?" Peter was sure the neighbours could hear him. Hell the building next door. "Or is that another one of your stupid tests?!"

Black spots were definitely encroaching on his vision now – threatening to swallow him whole. His breaths were coming in short pants that were never quite enough to satisfy. He needed – he needed –

It took Tony a full minute to respond, his voice barely above a whisper when in finally floated through the phone. "Kid-"

" _No_. No." Peter cut him off, screaming right over the top of him. "You don't get to exist when it's convenient for you." There was something wet spilling over Peter's cheeks. Tears. They welled in his eyes, the crop of his months of waiting – months of worrying – all born from his moment of _failing_. "I did call! _I called-_ "

"Peter-"

Peter never heard what Tony had to say. Before the older man could get more than the one word out Peter had seized up the phone and hurtled it so forcefully at the wall that his splintered on impact. And so did majority of the wall. The plaster crumbled in on itself – a perfect phone sized whole right in the centre.

For a moment neither Peter nor Ned said a word. All they did was breath, stare, and wrap their heads around what the hell just happened. Neither seemed to be having much luck with that last part.

They were saved from having to try for too long when the scrapping of a window nearby, and a rough tumble, broke the silence. Their eyes met – and both of them sprinted from the room.

Peter was ahead, he careened around the corner, back to his bedroom, and threw the door open.

The Scarlet Witch was gone – a bloody hand print across Peter's windowsill the only proof that she'd been there at all.

"Shit."

Peter really wasn't sure which of them said it – but it summed up the night pretty nicely.

* * *

Yeah. They're not in such a great place right now – but fear not, they will be. There will be feels, and tears and quite possibly (definitely) hugs.

…though how we're getting there I'm not quite sure. I'll admit I'm Stephen King-ing this story at the moment – literally writing chapter to chapter, so if you have any ideas leave them below!

There are definitely some heart-warming reunions in their future though.

Please let me know what you thought – I'm not sure why, but this chapter didn't seem to flow for me. I don't know. I feel like I'm out of touch with the voice of Peter that I found in the last story (or maybe that's because he's a little angsty here – where he was out smol, pure cinnamon-bun in the last [and will be again]).

I don't know. I'm just full of I don't know.

Please let me know what you thought of it all – character and plot. I read every review (multiple times) because your thoughts mean so much.

The next chapter is underway…


	3. The Talk

Okay! Here we have it chapter 3!

So sorry for the wait – you know those assignments I was talking about procrastinating in chapter 1…well eventually I did have to do them. And they took _forever_.

But without further adieu chapter three!

Ps. Please forgive any mistakes. It is late here and I have not proof read this enough – but I just wanted to put it up for you all!

Enjoy…the feels….

* * *

 **CHAPTER 3. THE TALK**

* * *

Peter spooned a clump of cereal out of his bowl, contemplating it sombrely before tipping it back into the grey mess below.

Two hands appeared on either side of Peter's cereal. Or what was left of his cereal. "You do know it's not actually going to dissolve no matter how much you play with it." Peter glanced up from the sopping mess to find May leaning across the kitchen counter, staring at his with a raised brow. Peter ducked his head back down to his bowl – but he was already too late. "What's up?" May asked, leaning down on her elbows and actively searching for Peter's eyes.

Peter swallowed the lingering anxiety that had been eating at him since last night – the fight, the call and the bleeding Avenger that had slipped out of his window without a trace despite Peter spending the rest of the night (and morning) searching for her. He plastered a smile on his face and prayed it didn't look as painful as it felt. "Nothing." He said, widening his eyes innocently – oh god. He hoped she couldn't see how red they were. He was exhausted. Beyond exhausted –"Really – it's just-" Peter shrugged. "Been a long week."

May shot him an odd look. "It's Wednesday, Pete." She said. Peter groaned, and flopped his head down onto the bench. May chuckled, running her fingers through his hair. It felt nice. The tension that seemed to have cemented in his shoulders eased – just slightly. "Does this have anything to do with the hole in my bathroom wall?"

And just like that the tension was back – with a vengeance.

"I'll fix that!" Peter blurted out his head snapping up. "I swear – don't even worry about it. I'll go by the hardware shop on my way home and-"

"Hey – hey," May shushed him. "It's fine. Accidents happen. Don't worry about it, we can fix it up on the weekend – a little bit of plaster and paint and it'll be good as new."

Peter nodded slowly, his head sinking back down onto the bench.

"You're sure it's nothing?" May asked, her hand sinking back into his hair. Peter nodded into the bench, doing his best to stay awake and quickly failing. "You know you can come to me, right – no more secrets." May's hand paused in his hair.

Peter looked up, forcing a smile back to his lips.

"Yeah – I know."

May ran a hand through his one hair more time. "Okay." She nodded, clearly not convinced, but letting it go regardless. God, Peter loved her. She gave his head a couple of quick pats like he was golden retriever, pulling a sad chuckle from Peter's lips, before leaning her elbows against the bench and resting her chin on her entwined hands. "You should get moving, don't you have decathlon practise before class?"

Peter glanced over at the microwave behind her head – and the red time stamp blaring on the screen.

"Oh _shit_." He muttered, throwing his spoon down and snatching up his backpack from the floor. He launched over the couch and towards the front door.

"Have fun – don't study too hard." May called as he stumbled into the hall.

Shit. Shit. _Shit_. The word echoed in his head as he flew down the stairs – not willing to even spare the seconds it would take for the elevator to reach their floor.

MJ was going to murder him.

Peter busted through the building's front door and took off in the direction of the subway – slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he went. He tore across the road to a symphony of honking horns and through a nearby alley – scaling a wire fence and skipping over the dumpster below. He darted back out onto the street, narrowly avoiding a cyclist, before breaking into a sprint again. Okay. Practise was in twenty minutes. If he caught the train scheduled to leave in two, he'd be there in thirty minutes. Twenty-five if he pushed it – or less even if he ducked _over_ the music building. The school would be empty, no one would see –

Peter had just leapt off the curb when a sleek, black car pulled in in front of him – barely giving him enough to skid to a stop before he was sent flying over the hood. As it was he collided with the side of the car with a loud _thunk_.

"Oh, god." Peter scrambled over to the driver's tinted window. This was exactly what he didn't need this morning. "I am so sorry! Serious I-"

The window slid down – and Tony's face appeared.

"Get in." He said sharply, nodding to the passenger side.

Everything in Peter froze at the sight of the man. Never mind that he'd seen him almost everyday on television for the last week – or that in the weeks before that he'd watched more YouTube clips of Iron Man spotting's than he would ever admit to – seeing Tony in person was like having cold water thrown over the cloud that had been his life for the last two months. All of a sudden it was like everything that had happened since then, every decathlon practise and Lego-building extravaganza with Ned, faded away and Peter was right back in that night. Cold. Confused. And _terrified_.

"No." Peter said shortly, his rage from last night returning. No. The man couldn't just show up when _he_ felt like it. That wasn't how this worked.

Peter stepped back onto the sidewalk and walked away. Or tried too. The sleek, black sedan was in front of him again before he could take more than a couple of steps.

Tony was fully leaning out of the window as his eyes flashed over at Peter.

"Get _in_." He said slowly – lengthening every syllable as if Peter hadn't understood him the first time. Oh – he understood.

" _No_." Peter thundered, side-stepping the car. " If you want to talk you can pick up the damn phone when _I call you_ -"

The driver's side door flew open, and Tony launched out. Cutting in front of Peter faster than he had thought the older man was capable of moving. Peter jerked to a stop.

" _Get in_!" Tony hissed pulling the black cap sitting atop his head a little lower as a couple passed them by. "We need to talk and we cannot do that on the street, unless you want Ross to get a nice picture of us hand-delivered to his desk." Tony stared over at him pointedly and Peter's heart plummeted into his stomach. Tony must have been able to see the threat hit home in Peter's expression, because a second later his eyes were suddenly much softer – and the hand reaching out to rest on Peter's shoulder was no longer clenched in a fist. "Please." Tony murmured. "Please, just get in."

Peter was already allowing himself to be lead to the passenger door as he continued to argue – but his voice was low, his heart no longer in it. No. That particular organ was still somewhere around his lower intestine. "I'm late for decathlon practise." He mumbled.

Tony heard. He held the door open for Peter. "I'll drop you off."

Peter released a heavy breath through his teeth, but folded inside the car without another word – shoving his backpack down at his feet.

He threw a glance around the interior of the car as Tony made his way back around the car to the driver's side.

"Is this a Civic?" Peter asked as soon as Tony had slammed the door closed behind him. He threw another glance around the car – as if it's modest décor might morph into Italian leather with second look. It didn't. "Why do you own a Civic?"

Tony pulled the car away from the gutter, cutting into the morning traffic with ease. "So I can be incognito when I have to drive all the way out to Queens to talk to a punk-ass kid who hung up on me." He said, yanking off his cap and hurling it into the back seat.

The words rung in Peter's brain – holy Jesus he'd hung up on _Tony Stark_ – but he refused to let them take hold. He wasn't going to feel bad about it. Even if the man was his hero – kinda. Maybe. Completely. The man was being a dick. And Peter was feeling more than a little petty.

"Where do people think you are?" He asked. Glancing around the people passing them by.

"Happy's cutting a couple of laps around Midtown." Tony said. "We've probably got an hour or so before anyone gets suspicious." He sank back in his seat – throwing a cutting look in Peter's direction. "So, to kick us off, _have_ you been shot in the last twenty-four hours?"

Peter threw his head back against the headrest. "No."

Tony's voice took on an uncharacteristically sharp edge. "Look at me." He said, and Peter did. He was angry – but that voice left no room for petty arguments. When he finally met the older man's eyes they were boring into his own.

" _No_." Peter said again. Dragging the word out.

Tony stared for a moment longer – eyes searching – but eventually nodded.

"Has Ned been shot?" He asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly at the road ahead of them as they slipped between cars.

"What – no." Peter breathed.

Tony nodded again before fixing Peter with another pointed look. "Then _why_ …?"

Peter threw his arms up. "We were just…being stupid." He said lamely. God. Tony was going to see right through him. He was going to know. He was going to know that Peter had followed Ross's man – even when Tony _told_ him to keep clear of everything Ross related – and he was going to know that –

"Okay." Tony said, and Peter's eyes flashed to him. He was nodding slowly to himself – the tension that Peter hadn't noticed in his shoulders was ebbing away with every short nod. "Good. That's settled." Tony's eyes settled on something on the other side of the windscreen – far away from Peter's cautiously searching eyes. His next words though left Peter spinning. "I'm sorry I've been dodging you." Tony murmured – Peter staring at him openly now, mouth hanging open. That was…not what he expected. He'd thought Tony would deny everything. The avoidance. The calls. His surprise folded to fear – god Peter did not want to address this. Did not want to talk about _why_ Tony was refusing to speak to him. To let him help –

"The truth is this thing with Ross has spiralled – well spiralled further than I thought it would, and I didn't want to freak you out." Tony cut off Peter's wild thoughts.

Peter's brain shuddered to a halt. What? "What do you mean?"

Tony shifted awkwardly, pulling his eyes away from the road ahead of them to steal a glance at Peter. Gaging his reaction? "He's monitoring my calls." Tony said slowly, watching for any shifts in Peter's expression. Peter kept his jaw tight and his eyes fixed – but his heart was racing. "The people I visit – the people I talk to." Tony went on. "Probably the goddamn UberEats kid who delivered my Pad-Thai last night."

Peter's heart was thundering in his ears. "Why?"

Tony let out a long breath. "If he can prove that I'm in bed with someone, or something, even remotely unsanitary he'll be able to push for a subpoena that will force my hand with the Accords." Peter knew his face was getting paler by the minute – but there was little he could do with the terror that was currently strangling his vital organs. "And if I sign how they are now, I wont have a leg to stand on when it comes to amendments – and the others will have to either sign as well, or be labelled enemies of the United Nations." Tony gave a small shrug that was not nearly as casual as he probably intended it to be. It caught halfway, morphing into a cross between some kind of nauseated shiver and a muscle spasm. "Essentially our year long dance since Germany will be over – and Ross will have won."

That something that had been wrapped around Peter's internal organs clenched suddenly – and then tore them all out. Leaving Peter hollow and cold.

"Oh." He said lamely.

"Yeah – it's a bit of a shit-creek situation." Tony said, running a calloused hand through his hair –managing to make his hat hair even worse. "But it's not the point I came to make. All you need to know is that – we – well we can't talk right now." Tony's fidgeting hand stilled as he spoke. His eyes re-focused on Peter. "Not with Ross looming over us."

"Yeah," Peter said quickly, shoving the swell of crippling disappointment down. "Yeah – no – I get it." And he did. He did. Tony was in such a precarious position already – he didn't need to be worrying about Peter as well. "Why – I mean how did all this happen?" Peter found himself asking before he'd really thought the question through. "Is this all because of what happened at the Compound?"

Tony opened his mouth to answer, but faltered. His lips clamped shut a moment later. "In a sense." He murmured finally.

"What sense?" Peter breathed.

Tony stared at the road stonily for a moment before answering. "In the sense that I might have told him he could shove his Accords somewhere unspeakable," Tony said. "And then tried to kill him – kind of. A little." He added – just as an after thought.

 _Oh._

Peter knew his eyes were as wide as saucers – but he couldn't beat down his astonishment long enough to fix them. " _Why_?"

The next look Tony fixed on his was not light. It was no glance either. The older man's eyes shot to him and stayed there. Taking in every inch of him – and Peter found himself staring back into them. They were tight, and _tired_ , but there was something in them – something deep, and gutting churning just out of Peter's reach –

And then it was gone. And so were Tony's eyes.

Tony's eyes snapped back to the road, casting a glance over the too crowded roads and crawling cars around then before flicking back to Peter casually. "You're good though, right?" He said, flippancy returning with a flourish. "All's well in the neighbourhood – and with your little friends?"

"Ugh – yeah." Peter said, the whiplash of Tony's mood change throwing him for a second. "Everything's good." He added – plastering the same smile he'd given May across his lips.

Tony's eyebrows rocketed to his hairline. "Wanna try that again with a little more feeling?" He asked dryly. Peter scowled. "I meant what I said, kid," Tony went on, pausing until Peter's eyes had glided back to him. The older man's face was hard – not an inch of uncertainty in it. "Ross is never going to get anywhere near you – that might just mean that we can't talk for a while." Tony said, lips pulling into a hard line. He pulled off the road a second later – gliding into a park on the street. "And if we loose – well – maybe for a long while."

That hollow feeling in Peter's chest returned. "Do you think you will?" Peter asked quietly – not really sure he wanted an answer. "Lose?"

"I don't know." Tony said, honestly, turning in his seat to face Peter head-on. He clasped a hand around Peter's closest shoulder. "But you'll be alright. You're smart – most of the time at least." Tony smirked. "Just use that too big of a brain of yours and you'll be all good – yeah?"

"Yeah." Peter nodded, trying for the world not to show just how much that hand on his shoulder meant to him – and how he might crumble without it. "Ugh-" He fumbled. "Good luck."

Tony clapped his shoulder one last time before letting go. "Thanks, kid." He chuckled. When Peter didn't move the chuckle grew. "Aren't you late for something?" Tony asked.

Peter's head snapped up – finally taking in something outside the car. They were only a couple blocks from the school now, Tony having gotten them there in record time. "Yeah – right, yeah." He scrambled to grab his bag from the floor, but didn't get out. Now that he was here – _with Tony_ – he wasn't in a hurry to leave. Even at risk of death from MJ for being late to practise.

"Here," Tony reached into the glove box by Peter's knees, pulling something small and sleek out. "I'm guessing the other didn't survive." A cell phone fell into Peter's lap. He stared at it for a moment before picking it up gingerly. It _felt_ expensive. "My direct line's already in there – but emergencies only." Tony went on – waggling a cautionary finger in Peter's direction. "And by emergency, I mean _real emergencies_. Like _I'm bleeding out in a Denny's car-park_ kind of emergencies." Peter nodded jerkily. The car fell silent. With that hollowness firmly set in his chest Peter pushed open the passenger door and pulled himself out. "And Peter," Tony called to him – and Peter had his head back in the car so fast he nearly brained himself on the doorframe. "Keep the gruesome midnight Googling to a minimum." Tony asked lightly.

Peter nodded again. "Right."

Tony grinned. "Just search for porn, like a normal fifteen year old-" He called as Peter slammed the door shut.

He waited on the curb as it pulled away and disappeared into traffic – the hollow feeling in his chest only growing as he lost sight of the civic. A crushing realization that _that_ might have been the last time he would see Tony for – well – a long time settled over him, and left him frozen on the sidewalk. Desperately trying to quash the crippling feeling that he'd just _lost_ something.

He stood on the sidewalk for a long time, all thoughts of decathlon practise, school and MJ's murderous rage forgotten. All swallowed by that hollow feeling in his chest.

He wasn't gone – not for good anyway. They hadn't lost. They hadn't lost – not yet – maybe not ever. All of this, it was – it was just speculation. They had no guarantees that anything would change –

Something hard collided with Peter's shoulder, interrupting him mid-freak-out.

"Sorry – sorry," Peter stammered, turning to face the warm body that had just walked right into him. God he was being an idiot – standing in the middle of the street freaking out over things that _hadn't even happened yet_ and –

Glowing red eyes met his own as he turned.

And blackness hit him a moment later.

* * *

Peter launched back into consciousness with nauseating speed.

"Nuuugh!"

He shot backwards, colliding with the back of the seat he was currently occupying – nearly toppling over – and thoroughly startling the old couple seated next him, who were now throwing him odd looks. _Seated_ beside him? Was he in a restaurant? Throwing a wild glance around Peter confirmed this – the décor of a weathered Chinese place glaring at him – but the confirmation did nothing to ease his mounting confusion. What? How did – how did he – _what_?

"Tea?"

A voice broke his panic and Peter's head snapped forward – meeting a pair of emerald eyes that were seated just across from him. The eyes were…odd. They were definitely green at their centre, but the outsides were rimmed with gold, which seemed to be creeping inwards towards the irises – mixing with the green and resulting in a striking topaz. The longer Peter stared into them, the more his head spun. God – he was going to puke.

"What?" Peter managed to rasp. The woman across from his held up a white and gold teapot, nodding at the empty cup in front of him.

"Tea?" The Scarlet Witch asked again, Peter's brain finally kicking into gear enough to recognise her. He could be forgiven for not putting it together immediately – after all she looked nothing like she had the night before. Gone was the dirt caked onto every inch of her bare skin, matted hair, and the blood that had haunted Peter all night as he'd imagined her bleeding out in an alley somewhere. She was still pale – and moving quite cautiously – but her clothes were clean, her hair brushed and the bullet wound hidden beneath a worn looking sweater.

" _What_!?" Peter croaked again, throwing another wild glance around the restaurant. Older couples sat all around them, most of them chatting away in incomprehensively fast Mandarin, while staff wandered about the tables delivering wicker containers of food, stacked one on top of another. A sign for the Bryant Park subway entrance – on 42nd – caught his eye just outside the restaurant's dusty windows. 42nd – oh god – was he in _Midtown_?

Peter threw a wild glance down at his watch. 9:15. Oh god. May was going to kill him. _MJ was going to kill him_. He needed – he needed –

The Witch merely watched, one hand still resting on the handle of the teapot that she had placed back on the table, as he began to hyperventilate. "How old are you?" She asked when his head had started snapping from one side of the restaurant to the other – because he _could not_ be in Midtown. No. He was at school – he'd been – he'd been late. He was – he was with Tony.

And then everything snapped into place. School. Decathlon practise. Tony. Tony leaving.

Maybe for good.

Peter's words were a lot harsher than he really intended them to be – but he really had no idea how he'd gotten here, and to be honest he'd met his quota of things he could deal with today hours ago. "How old are _you_?"

"Twenty." The Witch answered without hesitation – those odd, gold and green eyes never straying from Peter.

The honesty of the answer took Peter aback. "Fifteen." The word left his mouth before he'd really considered it – god, his brain was still fuzzy. The Witch merely nodded though, lifting the teapot of the table once more.

"Tea?" She asked for a third time – raising a single eyebrow in Peter's direction. He nodded jerkily – though to be fair he would have nodded at just about anything she said in that moment, only catching every second word at best. There was a cloud in his head and he _really_ wasn't enjoying it. "I'm Wanda." The Witch – Wanda – said once Peter's cup was full and he'd stopped blinking every two seconds, everything slowly coming into better focus.

"I know." Peter nodded, the fog in his brain finally staring to clear. "Peter." He said, before really considering whether he could. He tossed another quick glance around the restaurant. "H-how did we get here?" He scooped up his cup and took a long sip, his hands shaking slightly.

"I brought us here." Wanda said, taking a sip of her own mug with her right hand. Her left stayed firmly under the table, likely cradled against her side. Peter – with a sting of guilt – imagined it would be agony to move anything on that side at the moment, with the hole in her stomach so fresh. "I'm sorry for-" She waved a hand at Peter's forehead. A red glow formed in her eyes for just a second, but faded quickly, "-but we needed to speak alone."

Peter didn't know what to say to that – or how to react – so he filed away the apparent confirmation that she could essentially kidnap him at any time for closer reflection (and subsequent freak-out) at a later date.

"How did you find me?" He asked instead – gulping down his tea despite that it burnt its way down his throat every time. Wanda poured him another cup when he sat his empty mug back down on the table.

"You did take me to your home." Wanda said, her opinion on the stupidity of that particular move clear in the dryness of her voice. "You know – where you live. With your mother." She pointed out.

"Aunt." Peter correct automatically. Wanda's single raised brow rose even higher – in real danger of disappearing into her hair as he only gave _more_ away about himself. "She's my aunt." Peter muttered. God, he really needed to shut up now.

"You're Stark's kid." She said, still eyeing him up and down as they sat. "You were with him in Germany."

"You were with the Captain." Peter shot back – his clear distaste for that particular choice clear.

"I was." Wanda said, her voice even. Not a hint of emotion in the words. No trace of how she felt about that particular decision.

Peter and the Captain were on relatively good terms now – what with the Captain hanging around the Compound every time he'd been over before the whole Ross debacle. They'd trained together. Watched a couple of movies together. The Captain had even taught him how to make an omelette without burning it six ways from Sunday – okay. They were friends-ish. Peter liked him. Ish.

Okay – he really liked him – but every so often the image of Tony, on a med-evac from Siberia, beaten to an inch of his life, flashed across his eyes.

Yeah, he liked Steve. But he'd chosen Tony. And if this was about to come down to another choice, he would back Tony.

Peter would likely back the older man to the day he died.

"How did that work out for you?" Peter couldn't help but asking. The topic was still sore – even over a year later – and Peter always seemed to respond to it with scathing sarcasm. The others – even Tony – usually took the time to say something distinctly adult-like and frustrating like _it's complicated, kid_ or _it's wasn't that simple_. Wanda did not.

If Peter's words had been the bark – Wanda's reply was the bite.

"How has Ross worked out for you?"

Peter's stomach dropped heavily – leaving a sickening feeling in the empty crevasses of his gut. He didn't reply. Even if he could have gotten the words out, which he doubted he could, he had nothing to say. She had him, and they both knew it.

Wanda filled his cup again.

"I didn't bring you here to argue." She murmured, cutting through the silence that had settled over the both of them.

Peter curled his suddenly cold fingers around the steaming cup. "Why did you bring me here?" He asked his eyes fixed on the swirling contents of the cup. Not ready to meet those golden, green eyes that seemed to stare straight through him.

"I need you to get something to Stark for me," Wanda said. "It can help him – he'll know what to do with it."

Peter's eyes shifted away from his tea and back up to Wanda. "Why?" He asked, brows furrowing.

One of her eyebrows lifted again. "Because I took a bullet for you – I think it's fair to say you owe me a favour." She said, pointedly.

"No." Peter shook his head. "Why would you want to help Mr. Stark?"

More so than any other the question seemed to catch her off-guard. She pulled back slightly, as if the words had stung a little, and Peter suddenly found himself wondering if he's pressed on something that went deeper than whose sides they'd picked in Germany – but before he could take the words back she spoke.

"Because I can," She murmured. Those topaz-streaked eyes drifted down to the table – suddenly lost somewhere very far from a Chinese restaurant in Midtown. "And because he's done nothing to deserve the way I've treated him." The words were so soft that Peter barely caught them. A moment later her eyes were back – and the ghosts in them shoved back into their cages.

"They've been looking for you." Peter said. Not really sure what to say – but not willing to let the moment pass. "All of them." There was something haunting in her eyes that cut Peter to the bone. He had to admit he forgot _who_ she was sometimes – an orphan, and refugee, of a city turned to ash – so overwhelmed by _what_ she was.

"I know." Wanda said. "But I'm not done yet."

"Done what?"

"Righting my mistakes." She said. "As much as I can, at least." A tight smile crept across her face, not reaching her eyes. "I'm not like them – not like you, I don't think." She said, nodding at him thoughtfully. "I didn't get into this for the right reasons," Her eyes fell down to the now cold tea clutched tightly in her hand. "And now I don't know my place in it – or if I have a place." Even the forced smile fell. "If I deserve one." Those eyes crept back up – the topaz in them blinding. "I guess I'll find out when I'm done." The hand that had been wrapped around her mug disappeared into the folds of her black jacket, pulling out a hard-drive and setting it down on the table between them.

"Please, give this to Tony."

Peter dropped his eyes to the hard-drive for just a second – taking in its unusual slimness and lack of any noticeable brand – but it was long enough. When he glanced back up Wanda's seat was empty.

* * *

A bit shorter than the last one, but necessary in regards to the plot. PLOT…WHAT!? Yes. You heard correctly. Plot.

There is now officially a plot to this story.

So it will be 10 chapters long in all, and a bit of a ride…

…things really start to heat up from here on in…so strap in and get ready for some thrills, spills, and EPIC FEELS!

As always your comments and reviews mean the WORLD to me. It's honestly a little sad how often I read them, but every single one gives me so much – so much joy and confidence.

Even as an aspiring writer it's astonishing to realize the true impact of just a few words. I would say they make my day – but they make so much more than that. You all do – everyone who takes the time to read these fics.

You make everything so much brighter. Thank-you.

Until next time…chapter 4…where shit really starts to go _down_.


	4. The Attack

Whoow. Here it is.

I'm sorry the chapters taking so long right now, unfortunately I have started this fic at THE WORST time. It's the end of semester and I have a million assignments that I can no longer avoid doing – so writing time is sparse….but I have not forgotten our boys!

…though they might wish I had after this chapter…

A quick word before this chapter, it comes with a **TRIGGER WARNING!** There are **REFERENCES TO A SCHOOL SHOOTING** in the chapter – and although the circumstances in this story are extraneous, I am aware that this may be a trigger for some people as it is unfortunately an all too common occurrence in our time.

If this is a trigger for anyone please read with caution/don't read at all. Be safe everyone!

With all that said, enjoy!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4. THE ATTACK**

* * *

Tony fiddled with his cufflinks for the billionth time ten minutes. They had been stuck in traffic for over half an hour now on the way to the Supreme Court. He'd dropped the Civic off at a garage in Chelsea, and then slid into the Rolls Royce that Happy had pulled up to the curb in a deserted side street.

The car lurched forward again, skipping a few feet closer to the Court – Tony could see it through the window now, but the mass of media littering the streets was making it almost impossible to reach. Tony threw his head back onto headrest. He was struggling to stay awake – which was not a new sensation, but he was steadily finding that the kind of sleep-deprivation that stemmed from working all night in the lab, and the bone-weary exhaustion of sitting up all night with the image of the kid bleeding out in an alley somewhere, were very different. One left him with itchy eyes, but a sense of achievement that tended to override the discomfort of being awake for forty plus hours. The other reduced him to an aching, nauseated, mess that – despite his exhaustion – _just couldn't stop shaking_.

The door across from him swung open despite the still crawling car.

"Wha-" Tony breathed, pulling back in his seat and throwing a look up at Happy, who sat at the wheel. The sudden thundering of his heart calmed almost immediately when a familiar set of leg braces began to fold themselves into the back seat beside him.

"I meant the baby-sitter comment, you know." Tony scowled as Rhodey slammed the door closed behind him, cutting off the camera flashes that had caught his every step into the Royce. "I can sit in a courtroom all on my own – despite what you and the Captain seem to think."

"Oh, I have no doubt." Rhodey said, glaring out the tinted windows at the paparazzi that were all but pressing their noses up against the car. "I'm here to protect Ross more than you." He pulled at his uniform, straightening out the creases must have formed during his shoving match to get to the car. "And I think Steve's just getting a bit antsy, locked up in the Compound all day." He added. "He's nervous something's going to happen when he can't be there to help."

Tony huffed, his attention turning out to the paparazzi as Rhodey's eyes drifted over to him. "It's _Steve_ now is it?"

Without even sparing a glance in his direction Tony knew that Rhodey was throwing him a pointed look. "Fresh slate – that's what we said wasn't it?" Rhodey said. Tony shrugged. "Besides – even you call him Steve occasionally." Rhodey went on, clearly prodding for a response, his eyes boring into the side of Tony's face.

"Yeah, well, it's petty if _I_ hold a grudge." Tony moaned zealously, pulling at his cuff links _again_. "Which is why I was reliant on you – my best-est, and oldest friend – to hold it for me, but I see how it is." Tony huffed. A smile was pulling at one edge of Rhodey's lips as he shook his head in the corner of Tony's eye. "Brawn over bros." Tony grumbled. "At least the kid still attempts to hate him – in that puppy-like, adoring, _I would literally eat my web-shooters if you asked me to, Steve_ kind of way-"

The shadow of a smile had disappeared from Rhodey's lips. "You're babbling." He said, not an inch of room for Tony to argue. He was too experienced with Tony's brand of bullshit. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Tony shrugged, eyes still firmly fixed on the photographers blocking their way to the court stairs, and not on Rhodey's searching gaze. "Just looking forward to another wasted day of staring at Ross's face and waiting for it to spontaneously combust – I think I got close last time. Just a few tweaks of the 'force' and I'll be able to-"

Rhodey cut him off.

"-Happy said you went to see the kid."

Tony's eyes pulled away from the chaos outside the car to glare up at the back of Happy's head.

"Traitor."

Happy's eyes flashed to the rear-view mirror – his silent judgement wafting from the front as the privacy divided rose up, secluding Rhodey and Tony in the back seat.

Rhodey was still waiting for an answer – and would keep waiting until Tony got his shit together and started talking, if past experiences were anything to go by.

Tony bit the bullet.

"Yeah, we talked." He murmured, leaning back in his seat as the car started up again and they inched forward.

"And?"

"And he hasn't been shot, which is always a win." Tony answered without pause. The media storm pushed in close against the car as it moved, jogging to keep up as they slid towards the courthouse. Rhodey waited for him to elaborate. The silence stretched until Tony couldn't take it anymore. "There's not much to say – I laid it out for him, you know." Tony went on, aiming for casual and missing the mark completely.

"And how did he take it?" Rhodey asked.

"Like a trooper." Tony shot back. Silence met him again. "It's not like he has much of a choice – none of us do." Tony muttered, cracking under Rhodey's probing silence and dragging his eyes over to meet Rhodey's. "Keeping our heads low is the only way we're going to get through this."

Rhodey nodded. "And after?"

Tony's eyes, which had been drifting back to the window, shot back to Rhodey. "What?"

"When we're through this – because Ross doesn't have a leg to stand on. He knows it, and we're going to damn-well ensure it," Rhodey elaborated, a sternness in his voice that even Tony wouldn't dare argue with. "What then?"

Tony's confusion only grew. "What do you mean?"

Rhodey's eyes softened. "You can't push the kid away because he might get hurt, Tony."

Tony fidgeted in his seat to cover the almost painful spasm in his shoulders. "Pulling him close didn't exactly do him any favours."

Rhodey's reply was instant.

"Then pull him closer." He said. Tony's eyes darted back over to him. Rhodey was openly staring now – considering every inch of him – and Tony had to fight the urge to shy away. Those eyes always saw too much in him. More than even Tony saw.

The Royce glided another few feet. Rhodey stayed silent.

"You know, he reminds me of this friend I had in college." He said finally, just as Tony's impatient leg bouncing had reached new levels – threatening to stamp a hole in the floor of the car. "Small, scrappy, kid with a heart and brain that were too big for his own good, dumped all alone in a world that did everything it could to swallow him," Rhodey shot him a look as Tony shook his head – but couldn't help the small smile that tug at the sides of his lips. "But he was not nearly as breakable as he looked – with a little bit of backup there wasn't anything he couldn't do." Rhodey went on. "Still isn't."

Tony stared for a moment, and then lifted a hand and moulded it gently against the side of Rhodey's face. "I think you just touched my soul there, Pooh-Bear."

With a roll of his eyes Rhodey ducked out of Tony's hand. "That kid has imprinted on you like a duckling-" Tony huffed, starting to cut in, but Rhodey ploughed on. " _And you know it_."

"A terrible decision on his part, really-"

"We'll agree to disagree on that." Rhodey said before levelling Tony with a serious look. "Don't leave him out there all alone, Tony. He doesn't deserve it." Rhodey's eyes lingered. "And neither do you." Tony's irritated shifting softened – but Rhodey wasn't done. No. He was saving the hardest hit until last. "Way I see it, if it weren't for you, the kid wouldn't have made it off that lake." Rhodey added, the words lingering in the car as they finally pulled up at the courthouse steps. Apparently sensing Tony's imminent meltdown – or simply watching the blood drain from his face as his eyes darted back up – Rhodey cut him off before he could even begin to argue. "- _don't_ say anything. Just consider it." Rhodey said firmly as they pulled to a stop. "Consider for a minute, maybe, that you're not the centre of the universe," Rhodey shrugged, that ghost of a smile flickering across his face. It did reach his eyes though. "And that bad things just happen."

Tony's attention darted to the window when a surge of movement outside caught his eye. Ross was standing atop the grand steps, and the paparazzi were stampeding up to record him as he preached out at the crowd – his arms waving and eyes fuming.

At the sight of his fury, Tony's own loathing seemed to freeze in his gut. Solidifying into something cold, hard and consuming. It polluted upwards, into his chest, and along his every limb. Leaving them tingling.

"It didn't just _happen_."

* * *

"She legit kidnapped you?" Ned gawked up at Peter from his seat at the back of the computer lab. Peter was leaning over his shoulder, staring down at the computer screen and keeping an eye on the lab teacher who was making his rounds. "Like voodoo'd you all the way to Midtown." Ned breathed, eyes wide and wistful. "You are so lucky-"

Peter's fingers were rapping quickly against the desk – his eyes darting up to where the teacher was knelt down with another group of students.

"-is it working?" He asked.

"Give it a minute." Ned said, fingers flying across the keyboard. "What ever is on this thing, it's huge."

"We've given it forty minutes." Peter grumbled, his unease growing as the teacher moved a group closer. He leant a little closer, blocking the screen from view. "Can you tell what it is?"

Ned shrugged. "It's a bit of everything, I think." He said. "Video. Audio. Documents." His fingers stilled, and a green loading bar appeared on the black screen. Inching upwards too slowly. Ned's hands pulled back from the keyboard only to mash together – twisting erratically. "…Should we really be looking at this?"

The lad teacher suddenly moved away from them – called to the front by another group of students – and Peter's anxiety eased, just slightly. He folded himself down into the chair beside Ned, pulling in close to watch as the loading bar crept up. "What do you mean?"

Ned's erratic hand twisting increased. "Well, she said to give to Mr. Stark, didn't she?"

"Yeah – but, he's – you know – kinda busy right now," Peter said, nodding up at the muted TV squirrelled in the corner of the room, playing live exerts of the trial. Tony was front and centre – staring blankly up at Ross as the man roared something out across the crowd. Peter's eyes darted back to the loading screen. "And she didn't say _not_ to look at it, so-" Peter argued, Ned's apprehensive expression only growing. "Besides, she said it would help Mr. Stark, so we have to know what's on it." Peter added, firmly. "We might be able to help."

"How?" Ned asked. Peter was saved from answering when the loading screen finally came to an end and the hard-drive finally unlocked.

An endless line of files streaked down the black screen.

"Holy shit, what is all this?" Ned said, scrolling through the hundreds of files. He clicked on one at random, opening some kind of report. Both of them bent closer to the screen. "That is not English or Spanish." Ned said as the two of them scanned over the report – well as much as they could. The whole thing looked like gibberish.

"I don't think that is a language." Peter said, "I think it's coded."

"Awesome." Ned breathed.

"Open one of the videos."

Ned did. He closed the report and scrolled down to the closest media file. The first frame had the two of them leaning in so close that their foreheads were in serious danger of smashing together. "Holy shit." Ned croaked, eyes glued to the screen. "Is that _Ross_?"

It was. He was standing right in the centre of the frame – waiting. There was no sound for the video, but it was clear he was waiting for something.

He was pacing the expanse of a small warehouse, wooden boxes stacked all around him, checking his watch every few steps, and throwing furtive glances to something out of screen. He was out of uniform – no suit, no nothing – just him in slacks and a dark sweater with his hair smoothed back and his hands glued to his sides. After just a few seconds another man entered the frame – this man immaculately dressed, with a suit that practically oozed money and shoes that gleamed in even the low resolution of the video.

An uncomfortable tremble crept up Peter's spine.

"That's the man I saw last night." He breathed.

"What!?" Ned hissed, his eyes darting between Peter's face and the man on screen. "The guy who was…" His voice faded away as he watched Ross and the man speak.

"Selling Wanda." Peter finished.

Something moved in the shadows behind the two men. A moment later three more men came into view, a dark coffin resting on their shoulders. They set it down slowly, but didn't opening it.

"Oh god," Despite already being at risk of popping out of his skull, Ned's eyes widened even further. "Is there another _person_ in there?"

Realization hit Peter like a brick to the solar plexus.

"He's selling them."

Ned's bulging eyes swivelled to Peter's face. "Selling who!?"

"Enhanced people." Peter said, tracking the two men's every move across the screen. "He's selling them to Ross."

Ned's eyes darted back to the screen. " _Holy shit_."

Everything fell into place. "She was setting him up," Peter breathed. Ned's brows furrowed. "Wanda," Peter elaborated as both Ross and the well dressed man left the screen, the three coffin bearers hoisting the dark casket back on their shoulders and following suit. "She meant to be sold."

Ned's eyes jumped back to Peter's as the video stopped on its last frame – the now empty warehouse frozen on the monitor. "Oh." Ned said, chewing his bottom lip. "Whoops."

Peter reached over and closed the video with a quick click, tabbing back into the hard-drive to scroll back through the seemingly endless list of files.

"How many are there?"

"What, videos?" Ned asked. Peter nodded as he scrolled. "Dozens." Ned said, his eyes darting nervously between the screen and Peter's face. "You think every one is a sale?" Peter paused for a second – and then nodded. "Shit." Ned swallowed heavily, his pallor from the night before returning. "We need to get this to Mr. Star-"

Without warning the monitor flashed, and then went black.

"What the hell?!" Ned muttered, both he and Peter leaning back in towards the screen.

"What just happened?" Peter asked as Ned typed manically.

"It shorted." Ned said, "-it just cut out-"

Peter's stomach was churning, the hair on the back of his neck rising –

And then the lights went out.

The lab was plunged into darkness. Students all around them yelped, the sounds of chairs – and their occupants – tipping over echoed in the darkness alongside the teacher's insistence for calm. A couple of students had the sense to stumble to the windows, yanking open the blinks to let a least a sliver of daylight into the room. It illuminated the startled faces of the rest of the class – and Ned's terror filled one.

"What the hell." He panted as Peter threw frantic looks about the room. "What's happening?"

There was something outside the lab that Peter could only _just_ make out – a sound that rang out every few seconds, and then disappeared as soon as it came.

"Wha-" Ned began. He never got the chance to finish.

The fire alarm cut through the room a second later – echoing deafeningly – drowning out the strange sound that only Peter seemed to be able to hear. It didn't matter though, because Peter had already figured out why it sounded so familiar.

Why the _pop pop pop_ cut deep into his chest and stayed there.

Oh god. _Oh god._

"Stay here." Peter breathed, rising from his chair slowly, barely daring to breath as he strained to make out thegunfire over the fire alarm.

"Peter-" Ned started.

"- _Stay here_." Peter hissed, moving through the room quickly. He couldn't hear it. He couldn't hear it anymore – not over the fire alarm.

The lab door burst open just as Peter reached it – startling him so badly that he jumped a full foot in the air and onto one of the nearby desks, crouching down and covering Ned – who had crept forward behind him – from sight.

No took any notice of him. The class were much too caught up with Flash, who had shoved the door closed behind him before falling to the floor, trembling.

Before anyone could even ask what the _hell_ was going on he spoke.

"They're storming the school!" He shrieked, tears streaming down his cheeks. Several other students were crying as well, already huddling together and taking cover under the desks. Peter thought he might be sick at the sight of them.

The lab teacher moved towards Flash, starting to speak. Peter cut him off before he could start.

"Who!?" Peter rasped, leaping from the desk and reaching Flash before the teacher could take more than a couple of steps. Flash was shaking, his whole body convulsing as he fought to suck in even a single breath. Peter's hands clenched around his shoulders, trying to ground him despite Peter's own racing heart and rapidly deteriorating ability to speak. "A student? _Who_!?" Peter asked, shaking Flash just a little as he began to hyperventilate.

"I don't know-" He gasped. "I don't think so – they – they were wearing like military clothes-"

Peter's hands fell away from Flash's shoulders, letting Flash crawl beneath a nearby desk and curl up there, sobbing. The other students were not far behind his hysteria. Even the teacher had given up trying to comfort – he was busy pulling upturning desks for students to crouch behind.

Every face was stained with tears – but the only wailing came from the fire alarm. No one was making a sound.

No one dared.

Peter rounded on Ned who was still standing just behind him – paler than Peter had ever seen him, and clutching the hard-drive to his chest.

"We need to go," Peter breathed, his heart clenching somewhere up in his throat. "We need to go _right now_."

Peter didn't give him a chance to answer. He seized him by his jacket and tossed them both towards the door.

"No! What are you two-" The lab teachers voice echoed behind them as Peter shoved them through the door and slammed it closed behind them – snapping the metal handle clean off and tossing it down the hallway. There were no windows from the hallway into the lab – and the door was pretty sturdy. No one else was getting in. They'd be okay. They'd be okay.

 _But what about everyone else_?

"What do we do?!" Ned muttered rocking back and forth on his toes as he kept the hard-drive clenched against his chest. " _What do we do_!?"

"I – I dunno-" Peter breathed, dragging Ned down the hallway and shoving them both into the emergency staircase just a couple of doors down. The fire alarm was still going strong – but the gunfire was definitely getting louder. "I mean – if it's Ross, he won't really hurt anyone, will he?"

Ned didn't answer.

Peter was clenching and unclenching his fists to quickly that his fingers were beginning to cramp. "We need to get it to Mr. Stark."

"Yeah," Ned nodded, his head bouncing so fiercely that it had to hurt. " _Yeah-_ " He tried to push the hard-drive into Peter's hands.

Peter pushed it right back.

"-You need to take it."

" _What_!?" Ned screeched – both he and Peter clenched a hand over his mouth. Another round of gunfire echoed loud enough to drown out the fire alarm. Peter and Ned jumped apart, slamming against the concrete wall. "No. _No_. No, no, no." Ned was muttering, still trying to push the hard-drive into Peter's hands.

" _Ned_!" Peter hissed, seizing him by his hoodie and pulling them both down into a crouch. "You _need_ to do this!"

"-I can't!"

"You can!" Peter insisted. Ned's head was still shaking. "You are the only one – I _have_ to take care of the soldiers-"

Ned's headshaking mounted to a whole new level. "No! No, _Peter_ -"

Peter pulled him a little closer. "I trust you – more than anyone!" He hissed. "You can do this!" Tears were slipping from Ned's eyes now, his very real fear cutting Peter to the bone. "You can do this!" Peter said again. A few more tears trekked along his cheeks, but finally Ned nodded. Peter nodded with him. "They're coming – they're coming from the gym." Peter said, turning his attention to the intermittent gunfire and stamping boots that were making their way along the north wing to them. "Okay, you need to cut through the Chem. hallway to the back parking-lot – you know the one that leads into the Wendy's drive-through-"

Ned was nodding dizzyingly fast now. "-Yeah."

"Good – then you need to get to the SI building-"

"What, in Manhattan?!" Ned screeched. "Have you _seen_ me? I'm wearing a _Star_ Trek sweatshirt – and not even a Next Generation one, it's _Voyager_! They're not going to take me seriously!"

"You have to make them!" Peter said, pulling the staircase door open and pushing them both back out into the hallway. "You have to get it to Mr. St-"

No sooner had they taken a step then they were face to face with a black balaclava and the wrong end of an assault riffle.

Not that there was a right end, really. Not ever. But in this particular situation it was definitely the least desirable end.

Peter shoved Ned behind him with more force than he had ever dared use on his friend – but that gun was rising and Peter's senses were shifting into _hyper goddamn overdrive_.

Ned stumbled back into the stairwell, tumbling down the flight of stairs closest to them. A pistol whip from the barrel of the riffle sent Peter tumbling after him – but Peter was only down a minute. Before the shooter could take more than a step inside the stairwell Peter was on him – one hand clenching around the mussel of the riffle and the other clenching around the man's exposed throat.

His fingers wrapped around the flesh there, clenching hard. The action should have frightened Peter – he'd never gone the throat before. Not ever. Legs, and arms and even a torso occasionally, but never a throat – he never wanted to _kill_ anyone. But something had taken hold. Sliding down from where it clogged his throat – threatening to suffocate him – to the very corners of is innards where it churned and _burned_.

Terror.

He wasn't Spiderman here. He wasn't a hero.

This was school. These were his _friends_.

This was his life – _his real life_ – and whomever this man was, who was currently reaching into a holster at his back for a pistol, he threatening that life. Threatening his friends – and with them everything Peter really was.

Peter's fingers clenched even tighter. The hand still grasping the mussel of the riffle flexed painfully, and the metal cylinder groaned. And then bent. Peter ranked the riffle from the soldiers grip with everything he had – almost taking the soldiers' arm with it if the cracking in his shoulder, and muffled cries of agony were anything to go by – and hurtled it over the railing.

With his now free hand the soldier grasped a hold Peter, glove covered hand finding purchase at the joint where Peter's arm met his shoulder, and _squeezing_. It was Peter who cried out then.

Whoever he was, he was _strong_. Too strong. Enhanced strong.

Peter needed to end this – he needed it end it like _yesterday_.

The soldier's hand finally fell upon the pistol at his back. He drew it before Peter could move, extending the arm, but the mussel never found its way to Peter. Instead it paused on Ned, still struggling to his feet a flight of stairs below them.

" _NO!_ "

Webbing shot from Peter's wrist, catching the pistol and propelling it back towards the wall.

But the gun had already fired.

Peter didn't get to see if the bullet hit home.

The force of the webbing had thrown the soldier off-balance, sending him stumbling into the railing, and Peter – practically on top of the man now as he fought to keep a hand clenched around his throat – stumbled with him.

They followed the riffle over the railing and into a five-story free fall to the subbasement floor.

Peter hit the concrete first – his head smacking against the cool floor with the added force of two hundred pounds of super-soldier.

A moment later that same, glove covered, hand clamped around his throat. And _squeezed_. Black spots crept further across his vision. He couldn't move. He couldn't feel…anything. He couldn't. He couldn't –

And then, between one gasping attempt to draw in breath and the next, it was all gone.

* * *

"Objection."

The Judge's eyes dipped down to where Tony sat with his feet propped up on the table despite the Judge's many warnings. His eyes narrowed.

"To what, exactly, Mr. Stark?" He asked, slowly.

"To the fact that we've been over this, and I'm really bored." Tony said. His lawyer, who had been sat next to him for days trying to keep him from interrupting _too_ much, threw his head back against the headrest of his seat in defeat. "And kinda hungry." Tony added.

The Judge's eyes narrowed so much that Tony doubted he could even see through them anymore. "Sustained." He ground through his teeth.

"That, _that right there_ , is the point I am trying to make Your Honour. Mr. Stark has no respect for our policies-" Ross's voice cut across the court room again. Tony could barely make out words when he spoke now. His voice was such a common background noise that it was becoming almost synonymous with elevator music. Only less calming – through Tony had never really found elevator music calming. More perplexing. The ride was really only a minute long at most – anywhere – who decided that they needed a whole genre of music to fill that gap –

 _Buzz._

Tony's phone vibrated deep in his jacket pocket. He ignored it. He'd already been scolded for looking at it this session.

He pulled himself up in his seat and cut Ross off mid-sentence. Or what he assumed was mid-sentence. The man never seemed to _end_ his sentences, so technically there never was a _mid_ section.

"I have as much respect for policy as anyone – what I don't have respect for is time-wasters. We've been over this, _extensively_." Tony pointed out, waving a lazy hand in Ross's direction. "Yes, I call out an asshole when I see one, you know why? _Because it's my goddamn right in this country_!" That earned more than a few hoots from the crowd behind him – and a scowl from Ross. "If that's what we're here about then you have subpoenaed the wrong person – your issue is with the constitution not me."

 _Buzz. Buzz._

Tony's phone vibrated again. He ignored it. Again.

"My issue is with your blatant disrespect for the institutions that make this country great-" Ross started back up.

 _Buzz_.

God – that was getting really annoying.

"No," Tony cut in. "My blatant disrespect is reserved for you, and you alone." He clarified. "Last time I checked you did not embody the American military service – and thank Christ for that." He swivelled in his chair to get a better look at Ross's pink-spotted face. "All offence indented, there's a reason they never put your face on recruiting posters."

Ross's teeth ground together so forcefully that Tony swore he could hear it, even over the bellowing laughter of the courtroom. "Slander _-_ "

"-it's only slander if it's not true." Tony insisted over the top of him. He threw a glance up at the Judge. "And I assure you his face has _never_ been on a recruiting poster Your Honour, I checked."

Even the Judge seemed to be loosing his patience.

"Mr. Stark-"

 _Buzz_. _Buzz_. _Buzz_. _Buzz_. _Buzz_.

Jesus Christ. Scolding be damned.

Tony reached into his jacket and yanked out his phone. The screen flashed to life.

And the entire courtroom froze.

Tony's eyes flicked up from the screen slowly – a haze settling over his vision. Over his everything.

What he could see was the hint of smile that curved at Ross's lips as he watched the blood drain from Tony's face. There was no rage anymore. No frustration. It had all been a ruse. A distraction.

Those lips moved a moment later – but no sound came out. It wasn't meant to. This message was for Tony.

 _Checkmate_. They mouthed.

Tony was out of his seat and halfway through the courtroom before the Judge had broken out of his stupor enough to call for him.

"Mr. Stark! _Mr. Stark – get back in this_ -"

The double doors of the courtroom boomed as they were thrown open with enough force to dent the walls on either side.

And Tony was gone.

* * *

Messages - **Less Hot Legolas** \- Contact

 _Get to Midtown High._

 _Now._

 _Now Tony._

 _Now._

 _Right the hell now._

 _Pick up your goddamn phone._

 _For FUCK SAKE PICK UP._

 _QUIT DANCING LIKE A GOD-FUCKING-DAMN-SHOWGIRL ON ONE OF CAP'S 40'S_

 _FUCKING-TOURS AND GET YOUR OVERDRESSED ASS TO THIS FUCKING SCHOOL RIGHT THE FUCK NOW._

* * *

Messages - **Least Favourite Arachnid** \- Contact

 _Peter's gone._

* * *

And there we have it!

Shits gonna get real REAL from here on it…and Tony's probably gonna kill someone. Maybe. I haven't decided yet.

I will try to have the next chapter up as soon as I can – but I am still in assessment period for the next two weeks so it will be slow goings like this chapter, BUT IT WILL BE DONE! I promise.

Your responses to this story have been beyond anything I could ask for, and I can't wait to hear what you thought of this chapter! While the inspiration for this story came pretty quickly after the gaping wound that was Infinity War, it's been a little difficult to write…let me know if you think it's flowing well?...

As always your comments and reviews mean the world to me. Every single one. You are gods among men and I could never thank you enough!

Until next time…when things are going to get…considerably worse…


	5. The Panic

I AM SO SORRY! My god, this chapter took far too long but I'm BACK NOW SO ALL IS FINE!

Really, truly, I am sorry that this took so long. As I mentioned in the last chapter I had exams – which I muddled through thank-god – and then on top of that I had some family health issues that took up a bit of time and brain space…but in conclusion all is well now, and I'm back. I haven't abandoned this story by a long shot.

With that all said I will not keep you from the chapter any longer – so without further adieu I give you chapter 5 (aka when the shit-hits-the-fan for _pretty much everyone and no one deals with it well_ ).

* * *

 **CHAPTER 5. THE PANIC**

* * *

This was not happening. No. Just no.

No.

Tony's brain hadn't gotten much further than that in the time it took him to flee the courthouse and sprint down to the street below. The reporters were on him in an instant, but he ploughed straight through them – knocking several to the ground as he went – and they quickly scattered. Scrambling out of the way before they were the next victim to Tony's shaking arms, which were just about ready to shove _god_ out of his way and down the stone steps if it meant getting to his kid a second sooner.

The Royce was parked just off to the side of the courthouse with Happy leant up against it casually, a steaming coffee in one hand and the other pressing a phone to his ear.

"-look, I know what I said." He was murmuring into the phone as Tony thundered closer. "I know – but I told you, I just can't take time off right now – I know we told your parents we'd be there, but things are a bit of a shit-storm here right now so I can't just take off-"

Happy's eyes widened to twice their normal size when he finally caught sight of Tony, practically running now, coming towards him.

"Baby, I gotta go – _I gotta go-_ "

He pulled the phone away from his ear, shoving it deep into his pocket, and hurled his coffee into a nearby trashcan just as Tony reached him.

"Boss, wha-" He started, eyes still wide and frantic as he took in the paparazzi on Tony's heels.

" _Keys_ ," Tony hissed, already pulling open the driver's door as he shoved his hand out.

"What-" Happy started again, his eyes darting painfully fast as they shifted between Tony's face, the paparazzi and the courthouse behind them all. "What the hell is-"

" _Key_ s!" Tony roared. Even the reporters a few hundred feel behind them jumped. Happy pulled back instantly, his eyes finally settling on Tony. Or what was left of Tony – he was pretty sure he'd left majority of his major organs back in that courtroom. He was hollow and shaking.

This was not happening. He'd said this would never happen. _He'd promised_.

Tony wasn't sure what Happy found in his face, but it must have been enough because a moment later the Royce's keys were in his hand and Happy was shoving him into the car – fending off a few stray reporters who were brave enough to edge forward. A moment later they were all leaping away from the car – Happy included – as Tony pealed away from the courtroom and into mid-afternoon Manhattan traffic.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y," Tony called, settling his phone on the passenger seat as he wound in and out of traffic, at least twenty miles over the limit.

"Yes, Boss." Came her automatic response.

"Midtown Tech – find me everything-" Before he could finish the AI had already started speaking.

"At approximately 1:12 this afternoon reports of shots fired at Midtown School of Science and Technology were filed with nearby authorities. A police presence arrived at the school at 1:26pm. No attempts for infiltration were made until a S.W.A.T team arrived on scene at 1:39 and stormed the school at precisely 1:43pm. After an initial sweep of the school failed to produce any active shooters S.W.A.T began to evacuate students and staff alike as further sweeps were conducted-"

"Peter – where the hell is Peter?" Tony cut the AI off, his hands clenching so hard around the steering wheel that his knuckles began to ache.

"After the initial evacuation staff conducted a role call of all students – Mr. Parker was noted as missing. Two further role calls have been conducted. Mr. Parker has been noted as missing for both as well."

" _Jesus_ ," Tony panted, attempting to suck in a breath as he swerved dangerously fast onto the Queens Midtown Tunnel exit. The air just would come though. "Find him."

"Through which networks, Boss?" F.R.I.D.A.Y asked without hesitation. "You made it clear that, due to the trial, certain legal grey areas were to be avoided-"

"All of them!" Tony roared edging dangerously close to the walls of the tunnel as he speed past several lanes of backed-up cars to a symphony of honking. "Hack the god-damn Russian satellites if you need to. _Find_ _him_!"

"Searching." Came the AI's automatic response, and then silence. Silence that stretched long enough for Tony to make it all the way through the tunnel and shoot back out at sea level midway through Hunters Point Park.

When the AI's voice cut through the car again a hope ignited in his chest before he could stop it. Her words, though, dashed that hope as soon as it had come.

"Less Hot Legolas is calling."

The little air that was left in Tony's lungs fled. "Answer."

"-Tony, _Tony_?!" Clint's voice echoed through the car.

"Where the hell is Peter?" Tony hissed in lieu of a greeting.

" _Finally_!" Clint breathed, "Jesus, I've been calling for ages-"

" _Where the fuck is my kid_!?"

"We don't know-" Clint started, and Tony let out a long hiss of frustration. Inching his foot a little lower on the accelerator. "We don't know, but he's definitely not here. We've swept the place near a dozen times now-"

Tony was gasping for air now. This was real. Peter was gone.

He was gone.

"-Tony. Tony? You need to calm down – breathe-"

Clint's words barely registered in the fog that had taken over. A spasm shot through Tony's rigid arms, shooting the Royce towards the side of a brownstone as he jerked around another corner. " _Shit_!" He yanked on the wheel, pulling the Royce off of the sidewalk just in time to miss totally colliding with the brick-wall. He did loose a side mirror though. And majority of the paint on the Royce's left side.

" _TONY_!"

That was not Clint's voice.

"Wha – Clint?" Tony voice was horse, and foreign to even his ears.

"Pull over and _calm the hell down_ , Tony." It was Cap. "Pull over, Tony!"

"You tell me where my kid is Cap and I'll do whatever the hell you want, but until then-" Tony's foot edged even closer to the floor. The Royce shot between cars to a melody of honking horns.

"He's not _here_ ," Steve's voice thundered over the line. The force of it broke Tony out of his panic induced spiral – just for a minute. "He is not here, so getting yourself – or anyone else – killed trying to get here isn't going to help him."

Very slowly the words started to trickle into Tony's brain, and even more slowly his brain began to make sense of them – or tried to. No matter how many ways he flipped the words he couldn't make much sense beyond _he's not here_. Fear had taken over, and refused to let any kind of logic in. Logic mean actually swallowing the fact that _he's not here_. And Tony wasn't prepared to do that. He'd promised.

He'd promised.

" _TONY_!" Cap's voice was thundering through the phone again – reaching a whole new octave when Tony continued not to answer. " _Tony_! Answer me – please – just-"

Tony hit the breaks with enough force to send the Royce skidding loudly as he swerved into an empty side street and ground to a halt.

" _Jesus_ – _TONY_!?" Steve's voice slowly began to filter back through the haze. " _Tony!?_ Clint – you need to – _you need to track his phone-_ "

Tony lost track of – well – everything. It all just slipped away. All torn from him and drowned beneath the realization of what he'd just done.

What he'd just _lost_.

"Ross has him."

The absolute certainty of the words cut Tony to a core that he didn't know he had. He'd thought that by now – after Afghanistan and Obie, and then New York and Killian and the _absolute shit storm_ that was the Accords – he was beyond this feeling. This gutting sensation of having something so incredibly _vital_ ripped from his chest. First in that cave when the weight of the car battery threatened to yank out what little of his chest he had left, then on his couch watching those familiar hands twist and _tug_.

And then all alone on the concrete floor, with a shield that he knew better than his own hands buried deep in chest.

"Ross has him." Tony said again, the words taking more and more from him every time he said them. But he needed to say them. They were true.

He'd let this happen.

"We don't know that-" Steve was saying over and over. "We don't know anything right now-"

"I do." Tony cut him off. He barely recognised his own voice now. The tension, and gut-clenching _fear_ , that had bubbled in his throat since he saw Natasha's message was gone now. Replaced by the dull, dead, empty tone of acceptance. "You didn't see him." Tony went on. Steve didn't make a sound. "He knows." The gapping pit in Tony's chest, which had been threatening to consume everything last thing Tony had, finally won out. Between one minute and the next Tony's world collapsed in on itself, and he was left shivering, cold and _empty_. "Ross has him."

"Okay." Steve heaved through his teeth – sounding almost breathless. "Okay." He said the word again and again as he fought to swallow what Tony was telling him – and failed if his constant stream of muttering was anything to go by.

Tony began to slip away again. His mind – which was usually running so quickly that it left him a little nauseous and awake at all hours of the night – had ground to a stop. Completely. He felt weightless all of a sudden, but not the good kind of weightless. Not free. He felt…untethered. As if he might float away any second. Where? He didn't know – and nor did he want to. He wanted to stay _here_. He wanted to stay here – here with Pepper and Rhodey, and fuck it all _Steve_ , and all the other miscreants he'd invited into his house. With Peter. He wanted to stay with Peter.

All he'd had to do was hold on – hold onto Peter – and somehow he'd still slipped through Tony's fingers. And now Tony was slipping away with him.

"-Tony! _Tony_!" Steve's voice was still roaring through the phone. He sounded far away though. "Tony you need to _breathe_! Take a breath–"

Wasn't he? Now that Steve mentioned it he really started to notice the burning in his chest. He could hear the whistling of his lungs as they fought, and failed, to bring in any air. But he couldn't fix it – there was no air to breathe. It was all gone. He was falling through the darkness – real darkness. The wormhole behind him was closing, the nuke shooting ahead of him, but Tony was falling. There was no air. There was no sound. There was no light.

There was nothing – and inch by inch it took him. Inch by inch until he was nothing as well.

Without warning something seized Tony by the lapels of his suit jacket and _pulled_. Pulled until he was tumbling out of the front seat of the Royce and onto the damp side road.

The shock of the movement, and the shot of pain that flashed across his knees as they hit the road, was enough to kick start his brain. Just a little.

There were hands still grasping the front of his jacket. They flexed and then grasped at the crinkled material, using it to shake Tony hard enough to rattle his teeth – and clear a little of the fog that had settled in his brain and _refused to leave_.

" _TONY_!" Steve was in front of him one hand still twisted in his jacket, and the other pressed up against his throat. Two fingers pushing down painfully hard where Tony's pulse was thundering. " _Tony_! Tony you need to breathe!" Steve panted, his own chest heaving as he untangled his hand from Tony's jacket and slid it up to rest on the back of Tony's neck. The other hand stayed where it was, pressed fast against Tony's neck. "I'm going to call an ambulance, but I need you to breathe, okay? Breathe – in for five, and out for five. Just like me. Okay? Breathe with me-"

Steve heaved in a couple of breaths as Tony watched. Probably a good thing – Steve looked like he needed them. Had he run all the way from the school?

Through the haze Tony heard his phone ring from somewhere inside the car, and Steve pulled away just far enough to scoop it from the front seat – his hand never leaving Tony's throat.

"Tony? Tony!" Pepper's voice flooded across the line.

"Thank god, Pepper–" Steve heaved out a shaky breath as Tony watched. "He's here – I – he – I don't-"

"-He's there?" Pepper cut Steve off with a sharp hiss that _always_ meant Tony was in trouble. Or had caused trouble. "Tony? What the hell!? Why is there a kid _screaming_ for you in the lobby?! What the hell is-"

Faster than Tony had every moved _in his god-damn life_ he had snatched the phone out of Steve's hand and crushed it up against his ear.

The fog had evaporated – rushing out through his chest like a build up of pressure that he just couldn't hold anymore. It left him aching, shaking but _awake_. Aware.

And once it was gone everything else snapped back into place.

" _PETER_!?" Tony roared into the phone. "Is Peter there?!"

Steve's hand had fallen from Tony's throat to rest on his shoulder as he leant closer. Hanging off of Pepper's every word, as Tony was.

"No. No he's not." Pepper said hesitantly, all the bite vanishing from her voice as soon as she'd heard Tony. Her every word was soft now. Gentle. But reserved. She had always been too observant when it came to Tony. She knew something was _very_ wrong. "It's another kid I haven't met, Ted, or Fred, or something, I-"

" _Ned_!" Tony breathed, eyes meeting Steve's as he watched on with rapt attention. "Peter's friend." He explained. "What – why – why is he there? Where is Peter?" He croaked into the phone. Panic was gripping at his chest again. If Ned was there…and screaming…where was Peter?

"He won't say," Pepper said. "He won't say anything – not until you get here. But something's wrong. He's bleeding – or he's come into contact with someone who was bleeding – cause his sleeve's almost soaked through-"

Despite Tony not believing it possible, that panic that had been settling in his chest actually grew. Grew to the point that Tony was a little concerned it might claw its way out of his chest _alien_ style.

"I'm on my way." Tony said, scrambling to get to his feet – and mostly failing. "I'm on my way. Take him up to the executive offices and _don't leave him alone_. Get him – get him whatever he needs – whatever he wants – I'm – I'm-"

The phone was pulled from his hands as he struggled to make words and stumble to his feet, in that order. One of Steve's hands was wrapped in the lapels of his jacket again, and he used it to heave Tony upright onto shaky legs.

"We're on our way." Steve murmured into the phone before disconnecting the call and shoving the phone into Tony's jacket pocket.

Tony nodded, mainly to himself, as if the simple movement might set everything right again, and stumbled back towards the open car door. He had barely taken a step before an iron grip enclosed around the collar of his jacket and propelled him around the hood of the car. Before Tony could even process what the hell was happening Steve was already stepping around him and sliding into the driver's seat, slamming the door closed behind him. It took Tony a minute to get his brain, which was already _far_ beyond its capacity for the day, to catch up. When it did he scrambled the rest of the way around the car and shoved himself into the passenger seat. The car was peeling out of the side alley before he'd even closed the door.

"-he'll be alright." Steve was saying over and over as they wound through traffic, speeding through the busy roads that would take them back to Manhattan. "He's a smart kid." The Royce clipped the barrier at the edge of the tunnel that would take them back to midtown, sliding into traffic about twenty miles over the limit. Not fast enough. Not fast enough. They had to get there _now_. Now. Peter was – Peter was – "He's a smart kid, he'll be okay. He'll probably get himself out of this before we even get the chance to. He'll be okay – Tony? _Tony_ breathe-" Steve's eyes were darting over to Tony every couple of seconds, taking him in, before flicking back to the road.

Tony barely noticed him.

"I promised him this would never happen." He wasn't really speaking to Steve. Or himself. The words were just spilling from his lips because they had to. He had to say them. They were burning so hot in his chest that he couldn't hold them in anymore. "I promised him Ross would never find him." Steve's eyes flashed to Tony again. "Never touch him."

That nothingness was bubbling in chest again, threatening to drag him down.

Steve's voice rung out through the speeding car, his voice garbled as if he was speaking underwater, but the words eventually made their way through to Tony's brain. "Sometimes – no matter how we want to – _need to_ – protect the people we love, we just can't." Steve murmured, his fingers clenching around the wheel so tightly that the wheel was in serious danger of disintegrating under his grip. "Sometimes they slip right through our fingers." There was something raw in his voice that had Tony's eyes flicking over to him. His eyes were back on Tony. The blue in them was _burning_. "But we're going to get him back – and he would know that." Steve ground out. "He would know we're coming for him." His voice was hard. "No matter what we have to go through."

They both fell quiet for a moment, letting the rush of the car and the trail of horns that followed their wild dash across midtown fill the silence.

After a couple of moments Stark Tower came into view above them.

"I'm going to kill him." Tony murmured as they speed through across the last few blocks. Steve threw him a furrowed glanced. "Ross." Tony added, looking over to stare at Steve head on. There was a calm settling over him with every word. "I'm going to kill him for this."

Steve stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then turned back to the road. He said nothing.

* * *

"Tony!"

Tony shoved his way through the glass lobby doors, Steve on his heels, and spun immediately at Pepper's voice. She was pushing towards him from where she'd been waiting nervously by the elevator doors. Tony was halfway across the lobby before she'd taken more than two steps.

"Where is he?" Tony breathed as he reached her. She fell into step with him immediately.

"Executive conference room." She said slamming a hand down on the elevator call button and turning to take her first real look at Tony. He must have looked god-awful because as soon as her eyes landed on him, they couldn't pull away.

The elevator doors slid open and Tony forced himself between them, Pepper and Steve follow close behind, and then they were rising – Tony's leg tapping against the gleaming floor. He was the first out of the elevator, and, without waiting for the others, set off at a near sprint down the hall.

He burst through the conference room door at the end. Ned was across the room faster than Tony had thought a kid with legs that short could move. Within a couple of seconds, before Tony could really take a step into the room, he was just a foot away. And hyperventilating.

"I'm _so sorry_!" He heaved out in a breath that sounded disturbingly difficult to expel. He was shaking so hard that, despite wrapping his arms tightly around himself, he was still quivering from head-to-toe. New and old tear tracks twisted their way down his cheeks from his red stained eyes. "I'm so sorry, we were going to call you – _I swear we were_ – we just, we just-" He shuddered as he fought to get the words out of lips that were just refusing to move, and lungs that were clearly refusing to take in anymore air. Tony took a small step forward as he felt the others catch up to him, and freeze in the doorway. He reached out, but didn't touch the kid. The scarlet stain that had spread across his left arm had quite painfully caught his attention. Tony stepped forward again, trying to get a better look at the cut underneath, because there definitely was one. He could see the torn skin through the ripped sleeve. Had he caught it on something? Had he been _shot_?

Ned plundered on despite Tony's advances, barely noticing as Tony seized a hold of his bleeding arm and began turning it slowly to get a better look at the graze – and it was definitely a bullet graze. The fury deep in Tony's gut re-ignited.

"We wanted to help – Peter wanted to help – we knew you were in trouble with Ross and everything else and we just – when Wanda found us – we wanted to make sure that what she was saying was true, and that it could actually help – and if it could, maybe we could help you with everything that was going on, and-" Ned's words faded as the fight to bring in air got harder and harder, but he didn't stop speaking. Tears were streaming down the tracks on his cheeks again, and each breath wheezing in and out of his lungs, but he didn't stop speaking. Didn't stop staring pleadingly at Tony. "Please, _please_ , I'm sorry – _we're sorry_ – but please, please find him – I – _please_ –"

Tony, who was not at all pleased with the graze, but satisfied that it wasn't fatal, moved his hands up to grasp Ned's shoulders and push him gently back to a nearby chair at the empty conference table.

"Stop, _stop_ -" Tony cut off Ned's ramblings, steering him into the chair and kneeling in front of him despite his aching knees. "Breathe." Tony ordered when Ned continued to heave in non-existent puffs of air. "And tell me what happened?" Steve moved to stand at Tony's shoulder, but hesitated a few steps back so as not to spook the kid.

Ned was no closer to a deep breath. If anything his breathing was getting worse as his word vomit became word _begging_ – which cut Tony to his core in a whole new way that he hadn't imagined. "Please, _please_ , you need to find him – I – we –"

"I'm going to find him," Tony cut the kid off again. " _I'm going to find him_ – but you need to tell me what happened so I can do that."

As he spoke Steve had gravitated a little closer.

"Did you say Wanda?" Steve asked softly. When Ned's panicked eyes cut up to him Steve sank down onto his knees beside Tony. "As in Wanda Maximoff?" Steve added breathlessly. Tony knew that Steve had taken her disappearing act pretty hard. He and the others had been searching for her for months without a single lead. It kept Steve up at night. It kept Tony up too. He'd been running a background tracer on her since the others had turned up without her, but so far no luck – not that Steve knew that. Or needed to know. He didn't need to know that Tony had this sinking feeling sometimes, when he'd been awake too long and his mind tended to wander to the places he didn't want to dwell, that the reason she hadn't come back was him. They'd never gotten _along_ per say. The 'he-kind-of-lead-to-the-death-of-her-parents-and-brother' was the unavoidable elephant in every room.

"She's here, in New York." Ned heaved in a heavy breath, his eyes finally starting to focus on Tony as his hysteria gave way to focus. "When you called, the other night, it was her." Ned's eyes fell as he sucked in another deep breath, and Tony and Steve shared a confused glance. Ned caught the end of it as his eyes rose back to Tony's. "She'd been shot – we were, _Jesus_ I don't even know what we were trying to do, we were so far out of our league and then she climbed out of the window anyway and we couldn't find her – even though Peter stayed out all night –" Ned's words started to slur together as his anxiety started to rise again.

Tony inched forward, ignoring the screaming in his knees, and clasped his hands around Ned's shoulders. "Slow _down_."

Ned did. Just. "He didn't want to call you. You've been in so much trouble for everything that happened, and I think he felt bad. He didn't want to pile anything else on you. You've done all this stuff to protect him – he just wanted to help you-"

Tony cut him off again when the words reached hyper-speed. "Help me _how_ , Ned?" Tony pressed. "What did he do?!"

Ned's brow crinkled as he stared over at Tony – as if his guilt was literally weighing on the space between his eyes. "He kind of walked in on one of Ross's goons buying Wanda from some creepy-ass dude in a cemetery – and then things kind of spiralled from there."

* * *

Something cold and hard collided with Peter's face, breaking him out of the fog that had settled over his entire body. He was up and on his feet before his brain had a chance to catch up. A tingling on the back of his neck had him lunging for the corning of the room and bracing his back against it even as his brain was still processing – still trying to clear the fog that that felt like it had made a home in every inch of him. When it finally started to clear, and the solid concrete room he was in stopped spinning, his brain began to process a long whistling sound coming from behind him. Peter's eyes snapped towards the thick, metal door and bars that stood at the other end of the cell. And it was a cell. Cool concrete walls, a short bench and bars on the solid, steal door.

Before Peter could dwell too much on that disturbing realization the sight of a man standing just on the other side of the metal bars came into focus.

The low whistle that Peter's foggy brain had picked up earlier was coming from the man as he watched Peter back himself further into the corner.

The last of the fog in Peter's brain fled as Secretary Ross stared lazily at him through the bars.

"They told me you were fast," Ross said, his eyes still rooming over Peter with a calculating coolness that left Peter's insides churning. Even as Tony and Bruce had run all the tests they could think of when he'd first fessed up the whole bitten-by-a-radioactive-spider-thing, he'd never felt as much like a science-experiment-gone-wrong as he did under Ross's gaze. "But I must admit it's hard to imagine until you see it for yourself." Ross's eyes finally dropped as he leant casually against the metal door, raising an apple to his mouth and taking a vicious bite. Peter's stomach twisted.

"Where am I?" Peter whispered, unable to help himself. The concrete walls were finally starting to get to him. He hadn't done well with enclosed spaces since his unfortunate close-encounter with a few thousand tonnes of warehouse. The hairs on the back of his neck felt as if they were ripping themselves from the skin.

Ross looked back up at him as he took another deep bite.

"Far from home." Ross's lips twisted upwards just slightly as those calculating eyes roomed over Peter once more. "Little spider."

Peter's insides twisted so painfully that he nearly threw up where he was standing.

"Get comfortable, Mr. Parker." Ross drawled, throwing what was left of the apple into Peter's cell – it rolled to a stop near the can of soda that had woken Peter so forcefully. "You'll be with us for a _long_ while."

Without another word Ross turned on his heel and disappeared through a door at the far end of the room beyond Peter's cell.

Peter was curled up on himself and shaking before Ross had even slammed the door closed. When he did a sob tore its way from Peter's chest – and from that first sob came another, and then another, until Peter was fighting to breathe between the tears and the crushing weight that had settled on his chest, trying to suffocate him.

Some time later the lights in the cell shut off, and Peter was left alone, in the dark, with only his echoing sobs as proof that he still existed at all.

* * *

And there we have it…chapter 5. I promise that chapter 6 will not involve nearly as long of a wait!

Please let me know what you think! As I'm sure you noticed this chapter took a long time for me – it was hard to decide on how I thought each character would react – and I hope you agreed with what I went with in the end. Let me know either way! I love to read people's own take on how they think characters would react to certain situations – and this is certainly a situation and a half!

As always I read every single comment and review, and every single one means more to me than I could ever express.

Until next time (which again I promise will be much faster than _this_ time) for more whirlwinds of emotion…and even _more_ angst.

Yep. You heard me.

Tony's not done hurting. Not. Even. Close…


	6. The Raft

*Author crawls out of the hole of a life that has taken over all time and enjoyment over the last TWO WHOLE MONTHS*

…hi.

I wont even begin to apologise, because I can't – and also because what's kept me away was unavoidable. Life. Life happened. Hard.

My family issues spiralled quite a bit. My Masters demanded more time than normal humans have during the day – and so did work. So, all in all, a long few months.

SO I WILL NOT KEEP IT FROM YOU ANY LONGER!

Without further rambling here is the much overdue, well deserved, CHAPTER 6!

A.k.a the chapter where everything hits the fan. SO. Damn. Hard.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 6 - THE RAFT**

* * *

They didn't find Peter that day. Or the next. Or the day after that.

Or in the four that followed.

"What do you mean you can't find it!?" Tony roared at his monitor as he flipped through satellite images fast enough to make his already aching brain burn with the exertion. "It's a giant, fucking _tin can in the middle of the Atlantic_! How do you loose that!?"

"The Raft fell out of satellite view at approximately 4:21am on the day in question and has not resurfaced according to data taken from satellites monitoring the region." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice echoed through the lab.

"It _must_ have." Tony thundered slamming both hands down onto the metal desk in front of him hard enough to wake Sam from the soft-doze he'd been in for almost an hour now. The man shot upright awkwardly on the couch he'd been sprawled across shooting a glance at Steve – who stood completely rigid in the centre of the lab, as he had for the last day or so as their leads disappeared and Tony became more and more desperate – and Steve gave him a short shake of his head.

 _No._

 _No they hadn't found him yet._

Tony was ready to break something – several some-things. Preferably the bones in Ross's face. And then neck.

"They had to get him on-board somehow," Tony continued to roar at his servers as he shoved away from his desk and towards another desktop he had running to get him access to a Chinese, un-manned, space station that swore up and down it had no surveillance technology on board.

Tony was about to dis-prove that claim, and then abuse that technology as much as he pleased.

"It's the only place they could hold him – cells build for the enhanced, and Ross's own men in charge, meaning no one with a moral compass who might have a problem with _shooting up a school and_ _illegally abducting a fifteen-year-old_ -"

"Have we heard back from the school?" Rhodey's voice cut across the tense lab from his place leaning against Tony's main working station, only a few feet in front of Steve, with his chin hung down and resting against his chest. Like Steve he'd been perched in the same place for almost two days now. Had it been anyone else Tony would have kicked them off the instant their but-cheek hit the gleaming stainless-steal, but having Rhodey over his shoulder was more comforting than he was willing to admit. He always had been. All the way from college to that night on the bank of the lake, with Peter –

No. No. He wasn't going there. He couldn't afford to panic.

Peter couldn't afford for him to panic.

The assassins hadn't been back to the Compound since the day Peter had been taken. Both had slipped under the radar as soon as they'd established that Peter was long gone from the school, searching for him where Tony and the others couldn't go. Steve had even gotten in touch with Scott, who had set out on his own to dig up something within hours of the school attack. With nothing else to go on, the rest of them had retreated to the half-built Compound to continue searching, but now, days later, even Tony had to admit that they were no closer.

Their shared frustration had sent Bruce upstairs to meditate hours ago. He hadn't been back down since – the green guy brimming a little too close to the surface.

Steve nodded at Rhodey shortly. "No casualties. Minimal injuries." He said, his voice deep but empty. Mechanical almost. Just like his every movement in the last few days. Where the others seemed on the edge of slipping into a coma from exhaustion, Steve seemed to be shutting down internally. As if he were saving energy – or trying to bury something so deep down in his chest that it could never find its way to the surface, no matter how much it tried.

Tony was more than familiar with that feeling from the last few days. It was like a gnawing hole, buried deep in his gut, but never truly gone. Every moment it threatened to swallow him, churning so forcefully that Tony thought he might throw-up despite not having eaten anything solid since he'd fled that courtroom. Rhodey had forced a protein shake on him every few hours after the first day – threatening to cut power to the lab if Tony didn't drink it.

"Just as intended, I imagine." Vision's voice was soft, and even – as it always was – but there was something in it that Tony just couldn't pick. Tension?

Fear?

Tony, in the few moments between each world-ending calamity, had found himself wondering what the extent of Vision's experiences on earth were – how he processed? If he felt things like they did? Vision had had no qualms in answering Tony's arguably prying questions, concluding that he did feel, but not, as he imagined, Tony did. No less – just differently.

Tony had begun to doubt that analysis over the last few days. Fear – he was beginning to suspect – Vision felt just like them all.

Every crippling inch of it.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y any hits on Wanda?" Tony asked as he punched in a few last keys to get access to the Chinese space station. He set it searching in the area where the Raft had last been spotted, and then set about getting access to it's video logs.

"None, Boss." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice answered.

"I have found none either," Vision added from his place on the floor, in the far corner, by Tony's holographic servers. His purple skin was awash with blue light, leaving him almost pale looking. "Nor anything on young Mr. Parker, or the man he saw at the cemetery."

After Ned had finally calmed down enough to coherently piece together what he and Peter and stumbled into, it had been all Tony could do to keep himself from reaching out and strangling the still sobbing teenager. When they found Peter – and they _would_ find him, or so help _god_ – Tony was going to kill him.

Walking into dicey, government funded, human trafficking deals. Attempting to sow up bullet wounds at home. Opening stolen, government encrypted, hard-drives _at school_. Yeah. There was a stern conversation in his future. Peter had to be the only recorded teenager in history who was colour-blind to the colour grey – because these were so far from the grey area situations they had discussed that it wasn't even a little bit funny anymore.

The hard-drive, he did have to begrudgingly admit, was a goldmine. Every shady deal of Ross's was there in perfect picture. If Tony had had it days ago he would have leaked the whole thing online – and sent along a few videos in personalised emails to a couple of senators who would be none to pleased with Ross's extra-curricular activities.

As it stood now though, he could do nothing. Not without risk of retaliation. Ross would have retaliated before – without a doubt – but before that would have fallen on Tony, and Tony alone. Now, he was almost certain it wouldn't. What could Ross do to him after all? Use his political strings to make his life hell? He wouldn't be the first Politian to target Tony, nor likely the last. And with his career in disgrace from the leaked hard-drive, he would barely have a leg to stand on.

But Peter? Even disgraced and under investigated Ross could hurt Peter. Could _keep_ him. Keep him from his home. From his friends and May. From Tony.

Releasing the hard-drive wasn't an option now – and he was almost certain Ross was counting on it, though he couldn't be entirely sure as, yet another person they had been unable to track down, was Ross himself. The man seemed to have dropped off the earth after Tony fled the courtroom, and was now publicly unavailable, and privately un-fucking-traceable. If Tony had to put money on it he was willing to bet that Ross was hold up on the Raft with Peter, and the very idea churned in his stomach.

"Sir," F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice cut across the lab as Tony spun away from the computer and back to his workstation in the centre of the room. "May Parker is calling." Tony dropped into his chair just a foot or so from where Rhodey was leaning against the desk.

"Answer it."

May's voice flooded through the silent room.

"Stark-"

Tony cut her off before she even got the question out. There was no point waiting for it. They both only had one question at the moment – and every minute he spent _answering_ it was a minute he wasn't spending _solving_ it.

"I haven't found anything yet."

Behind Tony Steve was still standing in the middle of the workshop, his parade rest becoming more and more tense by the minute.

" _Shit_." She breathed across the line. She sounded as exhausted as he felt. "Maybe – maybe I should call the police. Officially report him as missing, I-"

"No."

May fell silent for a moment. " _No_." She repeated, her voice so cutting that Tony felt himself hunching over his keyboard, as if he could somehow use his shoulders to brace against her fury. Her absolutely justified fury. "That's all you have. _No_." She thundered over to line, her voice rising with each word. "Why the hell not?" She demanded. "He _is missing_! Maybe the police can-"

"The police can do nothing." Tony deadpanned. "He's not missing." Those words were met with absolute silence. Not May, nor the men spread around hurricane that was Tony at the moment, made a sound. "We know exactly where he is – the problem is that that place is in the hands of a filthy-fucking senator with a quickly diminishing life expectancy-"

"The police can't help him May," Rhodey cut over the top of Tony's violent ramblings, and brutal keystrokes as he continued working despite them all. "This will be easier without a media fan-fair watching our every step." Rhodey went on. "I know this is hard, but you need to trust us." May said nothing. "We'll find him." Rhodey murmured in that calm, assuring kind of way that had even Tony believing him. Just a little.

They would find him. They would find him. _He_ would-fucking-find him.

The line stayed quiet for such a long stretch that Tony almost thought she had hung-up, but after a full minute of silence the distinct sound of a call cutting off sounded without May offering another word.

The tension in the room didn't ease. If anything it grew. Tony's keystrokes were beginning to severely endanger the structural integrity of the keyboard.

"Someone should go check on her," Steve's voice rung out behind Tony.

The distinctive sound of stiff joints cracking at the very back of the lab announced Sam's battle to free himself from the small couch there. "I'll go." He said, moving into Tony's peripherals where the Captain was still modelling the tensest parade rest Tony had ever laid eyes on. Steve gave him a short nod. "Call me if you find anything." Sam murmured, running a hand over his blood-shot eyes and sparing the lab one last look – as if he might find Peter hiding behind one of the cluttered desks.

"Take your gear." Tony said without looking away from his screen, where he was back to coming through Peter's suit's recordings. " _When_ we find something, we'll be moving quickly." He added, aiming for harsh and falling far short. He just didn't have the energy anymore – and the idea that they might be giving up already only drained that energy more.

 _He_ would-fucking-find him. Tony would dig up the goddamn earth, alone, if it came to that.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y why the hell didn't I get an alert as soon as the suit got a good look at Wanda?" Tony snapped, doing his best to block out the movement behind him as Sam set about gathering up his suit. Steve moved to help him. "Is there a malfunction in the facial-recognition-"

"There was no malfunction." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice cut him off. "There have been no sightings of Wanda Maximoff in the _Itsy-Bitsy mark 2_ suit."

Tony's frustrations with Sam and the others vanished for a second as confusion washed over him. "I am looking at her-" Tony said, watching the camera footage he'd downloaded from Peter's suit. He'd been over and over the cemetery footage. She was right there. Completely exposed and clear as day – a little too exposed for comfort even. You could have cut the tension in the lab with a knife when they'd first watched her be tugged from the coffin and thrown, half-naked, into the mud at Ross's man's feet. "I am seeing her all on my own – with my eyes – and I can see it's her." Tony went on, pulling up the suit's coding – and F.R.I.D.A.Y's for good measure – to try and find the problem. Was it in his coding? No. The suit hadn't had any problem with facial recognition for anyone else – "How the hell can you not-"

"Her eye colour has altered."

Everyone in the room paused.

Tony's head snapped up to Vision – who was still sitting cross-legged on the floor watching the holographic screens. His eyes never left them.

"What?" Rhodey asked, throwing a look between Vision and Tony.

"Her eye colour has altered since original facial imprints were taken," Vision clarified in that frustratingly calm and logical voice, as if he weren't just throwing something out there that wasn't possible. Shouldn't be possible – "As face-recognition takes a great deal of its primary markers from the retina, it is now unable to recognise her."

"Eye colour does not change – not that much." Tony muttered even as he pulled up the cemetery footage again and enhanced as far as it would let him. What he found did not make him feel better.

He froze the footage as Wanda hit the dirt at Ross's thug's feet, her face turned away from the man above her and towards where Peter had crouched. From that angle the footage caught a clear view of her eyes – her very _not_ -green eyes.

The once green irises were now clouded at their centre with a striking ring of topaz.

"What _the hell_ is that?" Tony breathed as he fought to clarify the footage and enhance it even more.

Across from them Vision had not moved an inch from his place. His eyes had not strayed from the holographic screens – but his voice was softer when he spoke again. Hesitant. "I am not sure."

That was a problem. A mildly disconcerting problem.

But not a problem for right now.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y scan images 8213 and 8214 for identifying facial markers and then start the search again. Work backwards and close – start yesterday in midtown. Find her and Peter, and then track from there. I want to know everywhere she's been in the last few weeks." Tony barked, trying to push the discomfort in his gut down as he re-focused on the problem at hand. Find Peter. "And you know, where she is now. That would be preferable to everything else," Tony added. "But using the last few days as a reference point, I doubt the universe it going to be that kind to us."

"Searching." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice echoed across the lab. With that they all settled back into the tense silence they'd inhabited for the last few days – Rhodey leant against the desk, Steve taking up parade rest behind Tony once more and Vision still unmoving by the holographic servers.

After a few moments Sam became the only source of moment in the room other than Tony's vicious keystrokes.

"I should get going." Sam said, pulling his bag – with a compact model of his wings crushed inside – higher on his shoulder. "Call me _when_ you find something." He murmured.

Tony would typically have taken the words as a jab, and done so in his stride, but when his eyes darted up to meet Sam's for the first time in days he found a sincerity he hadn't expected.

"Happy's outside." Tony said, his attention falling back to his screen. "He'll take you – he knows the place."

Tony watched Sam give a short nod in the reflection of his monitor. He turned to Steve, who offered him one of his own, before moving to the elevator. He barely made two steps before he was jerking to a stop with the rest of them as F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice flooded through the lab.

"Sir, I have a real time match."

" _What_?" Tony breathed, throwing himself back to his monitor. "Onwho?!"

The A.I's response was immediate. "Secretary Ross, sir."

Something froze in Tony's gut. "Where is he?"

"He is currently letting himself into the main recreation room, just off the lobby."

Tony's every limb locked in place.

Steve took the smallest of steps forward, now only inches from Tony's chair. "He's in the Compound."

"He is."

* * *

Peter's eyes adjusted to the dark – eventually. He'd crawled into the furthest corner of the cell what felt like weeks ago, and had barely moved from it since. The lights hadn't come back on since that first day when Ross was waiting for him. No one else had visited him either. For the first few days that had been a relief, but now, having been in the dark for so long that he was beginning to worry what might happen if he ever saw light again, he would welcome a visitor. Anyone. Ross. A serial killer. Adrian Tombs. Literally anyone. He'd do anything to turn the lights back on.

But no one came.

The sensations that came with the lack of light almost made the cell worse. Every now and again Peter could _swear_ he felt it moving. Almost jostling, as if the building he was in were being battered by wind. And then, arguable worse, were the times when he felt like it was _sinking_. He could feel it in his ears as they popped and protested the change of altitude – but it could _really_ be sinking. Right. Buildings didn't do that.

Maybe he was going mad.

Peter let his head fall back against the wall behind him. The pain was a welcome release from his otherwise sensationless state.

He was almost at the point where he was prepared to start running head-long into the walls with as much force as he could – just to see if he could spur a reaction from someone. He never got to test the theory.

Right as he reached the point of desperation where he was willing to give it a go, something loud echoed through the wall where his head was rested. Peter was on his feet within seconds.

It was the first noise he'd heard beyond his own voice in weeks.

A moment later it echoed through his cell again. A loud, painful sounding _thunk_.

Every bone in Peter's body – which seemed to have gotten heavier and heavier with every passing day stuck in the cramped cell – suddenly felt as if they were lighter than the stale air around him. Humming with anticipation.

It was Tony. It had to be.

He'd come for him.

A shout followed the next _thunk_ , but it was cut short by the _thunk_ after that. They were definitely getting closer. Peter could feel the cell shake more and more every time.

He crushed himself back into the far corner of the cell – he'd seen Tony's repuslors up close and had no desire to get any closer – hands pressed against the walls, ready to throw himself out of the cell as soon as it opened.

The next _thunk_ was so forceful that it almost shook him free from his corner. The entire cell veered to the left – the leftmost wall somehow dipping down as the floor rose beneath him. _What the hell_.

Another _thunk_ rung out, and again the cell tipped. The left wall dipping so drastically that it almost took the place of the floor.

Was he…rocking?

Peter has assumed he was locked in a basement somewhere. Locked under tonnes of concrete in some black-site on a hidden continent, or something along those lines. But in his experience concrete did not tend to sway like that. Or at all.

It certainly hadn't when a solid 10 tonnes of it had fallen on him in that garage.

The most vicious _thunk_ yet rang out – followed by a blood-curdling scream that Peter tried not to focus too closely – and the cell dipped with enough force and speed to throw Peter from his corner.

Somewhere between hitting his head on the metal bedframe and crashing down to the right wall – which had now fully taken the place of the floor – Tony's voice trickled to the front of his mind.

" _Well, it isn't exactly a long list of people who could hack into his glorified, floating, soda can."_

They had never really discussed Ross to any great extent. Tony had a habit of shutting him down every time he broached the subject – deflecting with a _nothing you need to worry about, kid_ – but he had mentioned his facility once or twice, just in passing.

Floating soda can.

 _Floating_ soda can.

As swiftly as it had dipped, the cell righted itself, hurling Peter back into his corner.

Floating. _Floating._

Oh _shit_.

Without warning the cell righted itself, sending Peter spiralling back towards the metal bedframe. He collided forcefully with the base, his head smacking against the frame again, but felt nothing. The unsettling sensation of something warm, and sticky, trickling down the back of his neck hit him a minute later.

And then the gas started. Peter could feel it pouring in through the small vents at the top of his cell – flooding the small space in seconds. Soon he wasn't sure if his eyes were spinning from his forehead's close encounter with the bed, or the gas.

Or maybe the room was _actually spinning_.

His brain was still occupied trying to compute the implications of that when the lights flashed _and then turned on_.

Oh God. God it _hurt_.

Peter let out a guttural cry as the harsh fluorescence cut through his now light-sensitive eyes burned. It was blinding. The light, and the pain that came with the light, took every inch of awareness he had. The light whited out his sight, and the pain took everything else until he was curled on the floor, his head clutched tight between his hands, in an attempt to block it all out. The light. The cell. The weeks in the dark.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't go back to the dark – but _god_ the light burned.

He couldn't – he couldn't.

He just wanted to go home. He wanted to screw his eyes shut so tightly that this had to be a dream. That any minute now he'd wake up in his bed with May leaning over him – because she always came. No matter the time, or how many times Peter had already woken her, she was always there when Peter came thrashing out of a nightmare. And she always stayed. They'd curl up together on the bottom bunk and watch Peter's favourite Star Trek episodes. After that night at the Compound, when Peter had first come home from the MedBay at the Tower and Tony was still calling him almost on the hour to check up on him, May had stayed with him almost every night. He'd fallen asleep with her fingers running through his hair, smoothing his curls, as _Trouble with the Tribbles_ played over and over.

"Peter!"

God. Where was May? Was she here? Had they taken her too? Or, had they done nothing? Left her alone, with nothing, to look for him. And she would. She'd look for years – and she would be, because Peter was gone. Stranded in the dark for so long now that he'd never be able to leave. Never be able to open his eyes to the light.

" _Peter_!"

Something seized a hold of Peter's arm, yanking him away from the bed and out onto the open floor. The movement caught him so far off guard that it startled him into opening his eyes – a movement he regretted almost as soon as the light hit his retinas – but the light was no longer blinding. It was still too bright, and far too much, but in the light he could see shapes. Colours.

Red.

"Peter you need to get up! _We need to go_!"

Slowly, far too slowly for Peter's comfort, the shapes gave way to a face. Wanda was leaning over him, dressed head to toe in black, blood oozing from a cut across her forehead. A couple of stray droplets fell to Peter's face, leaving a scarlet stain across his check, but he barely noticed.

Her eyes had finally come into focus, and they were consuming.

They whirled with more colours that Peter had previously thought existed. The amber in them that he had noticed on their first meeting had given way to a churning mass of light.

There were whole stars being born in those eyes.

" _PETER_!"

"Wanda?" Peter's mouth was slow to co-operate, and his voice even slower. It had been so long since he'd spoken. Really spoken – to another person. "Wha-what's happ-"

"We need to _go_!" Wanda was pulling him again, but this time upwards. Towards the cell door – or where the cell door used to be. There was no door now. There was barely a cell. Half of the small space had been blown away, scattering debris out into the observation area outside the cell, and the cells just beside.

Wanda managed to get an arm underneath him and used it to yank him upright. His still spinning brain did not appreciate the sudden movement – sending them both tumbling back down to the metal floor. Peter groaned. His head was really starting to hurt now. He'd changed his mind. He wanted to stay right here – right on the cold metal floor where nothing hurt.

Wanda had other plans.

As soon as they hit the floor she was scrambling upwards, digging her hands into Peter's sides and hoisting him back up. God. Why wouldn't she just leave him? Couldn't she see that he was broken? Too far beyond repair to leave this place now.

The sound of stampeding footsteps echoed down the hall.

A blinding flash of red across the cell and out into the corridor beyond – causing Peter to screw his eyes closed as the light burned his eyes. He was kind of glad he did too. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what was happening to the men just beyond the observation room – he'd never heard screams like that.

As soon as it had come the red light faded. And the sound of footsteps with it.

"Come on, get up!" Wanda hissed at him as she dragged him out of the cell and through the small observation room. His legs were under him – barely – but they still refused to move. Wanda all but dragged him into the corridor beyond his cell and the observation room.

What they found there nearly made him want to turn right back around.

The guards who must have been running to stop them were frozen in narrow, metal corridor. A red mist hovered around their eyes, tinting the irises a vivid scarlet. Their expressions were vacant – except for some, their faces seemed to be caught in a silent scream that never ended. It was as if time itself had stopped, as the men stood in complete stillness all over the corridor, their weapons and purpose forgotten.

Wanda dragged Peter through the forest of stationary soldiers, seemingly careful not to touch them, but none to worried about the noise they were making as they stumbled along the metal walkway.

Not a single soldier noticed.

They staggered through corridor after corridor – winding and twisting their way through the maze of metal walls of vacant soldiers.

The silence was almost worse than the sight of the soldiers. Gone were the _thunks_ that had left Peter's cell swaying. Now there was only their uneven footsteps, and the ominous creaking of metal.

Eventually the corridors came to an end and Peter found himself at the railing of a lookout from which he could finally see extent of the situation he had gotten himself into.

Tony hadn't been kidding. It was a _giant, floating soda can_.

"Holy _shit_." Peter breathed, leaning heavily on the railing as Wanda pulled away. He could see every level – and there had to be at least ten of them. Peter found himself wondering if they were all full of cells. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, dark, cells ready for people just like him.

Suddenly the gaping whole in his head, and blood trickling rhythmically down his neck, were not the main reasons he wanted to vomit.

As his eyes made their way up Peter found himself fixating at the roof – or more specifically the two panels of thick looking metal that joined directly in the middle. An opening.

A door.

 _They were leaving_.

"How the hell are we supposed to get up there?" Peter croaked, turning to see where Wanda had gone – not nearly as concerned as he probably should have been by the fact that he'd forgotten she was there at all for a second.

"There's an emergency staircase in case of malfunction," Wanda panted, just behind Peter. He threw a glance back at her. She had a hand raised to the steel wall before her. The sound of protesting metal grew and the wall began to vibrate. Or maybe that was just Peter's eyes. Everything was still a little blurry in the light.

He took a step forward but paused when something cold dripped onto his forehead – mixing with the blood there before running along the length of his nose. What _the_? He looked up and another droplet hit him just above his left eye.

"Ugh," He started, staring up at the sealed gates in the roof. "Wanda?"

Wanda turned, pulling her hands away from the vibrating wall and looking over at him. The wall stilled.

The sound of groaning metal didn't fade.

Peter tore his eyes away from the roof to meet hers.

"I don't think that's good." Peter said, his voice nearly lost to the almost deafening groaning now.

Another drop hit home on the very top of Peter's head – lost in his hair as soon as it made contact – and then the groaning stopped.

And the roof gave way.

" _RUN_!"

Wanda had already latched onto him, and started hurtling along the walkway, before she really got the word out.

Peter's brain was a still a mass of basically non-functioning tissue, but his legs seemed to catch on to the severity of the situation, hurtling alongside Wanda as a thousand tonnes of water cascaded into the dome.

They were at least four stories up – and thank _Christ_ for that as the first two levels had been washed away in seconds – but the water was rising quickly, and with every inch it gained the floating soda can became a _sinking soda can_.

Peter's legs – finally awake – overtook Wanda in just a few seconds, but those seconds were precious. The first door along the walkway he found he tore open, and then shoved them both inside.

Water was already trickling in when he shoved the door closed.

"What do we do?!" Peter stuttered, almost tripping in the pool of water by the door as his limbs trembled. His spider-sense was _screaming_ at him. Run. _Run_!

Run where?

The door he'd sealed had already begun to groan under the pressure of the rising water.

Wanda had pulled away as soon as they'd lurched into the corridor, sprinting along the line of thick metal doors and yanking on each. Only one opened.

"Get in!"

Peter stumbled inside after her and yanked the door closed.

It was a storage room – barely big enough for the two of them – but Wanda didn't seem to care. She shoved him as far back as he could go and then started on the door. Red sparks striking the sides and bending the metal of the door back against the wall. Sealing it.

She was still going when the _boom_ of the door just beyond them giving way sounded, and water began to trickle in through the unsealed gaps.

After a couple more seconds Wanda lowered her hands – one hanging heavily at her side while the other curled around her torso, hand clenched over where the bullet had hit her when they first met.

"What do we do?" Peter said again, his whisper barely audible over the sound of trickling water as it dribbled in through the cracks in Wanda's work. It was already up to their ankles – and rising.

Wanda leaned heavily against the door, her skin pale and eyes drooping closed.

Blood was dripping through the fingers clenched around her side.

"I don't know." She whispered.

Peter found himself nodding slowly as the water inched past his knees. "Okay." He said, eyes darting around the small room as if a door that he hadn't noticed might suddenly appear. "Okay." None did. "I take it this wasn't part of the plan?"

A bitter laugh broke out of Wanda's chest, sending her into a coughing fit that only left her more pale and gripping her blood soaked side like a lifeline. "There was no plan." She murmured.

"Then why come?" Peter found himself asking. The freezing water was licking at his sides now – no time to be tactful. "Why risk it? You were free."

Those swirling topaz eyes flicked up to him. "You weren't." She said, as if it were the most simple of answers. She sighed and then straightened a little, groaning, as the movement must have pulled on her side, to avoid the water now rising over her chest. "Ross is watching the others – their every move – they had no chance." Her eyes slid closed.

"You do."

The words escaped Peter's mouth before he'd realized they were there – but he meant them. God he meant them.

Wanda's eyes opened slowly and flicked back to him, confusing clouding them.

"Deserve a place with them." Peter elaborated, her words from the Chinese restaurant echoing in brain.

The water had inched high enough to touch his chin.

"I don't think that being innately good at blowing things up should be an automatic qualifier." Wanda said, arching her neck to keep her head from sinking into the freezing water.

"It's not." Peter nodded, working to keep his lips above the water line. "Doing the right thing is – even when it hurts." Her eyes locked onto his, and didn't waver. "They miss you." He stammered through the water that was licking his lips. "You have a place – when you're ready for it."

Her lips twisted into the ghost of a smile. "And you've found yours already." She murmured, the words all but swallowed by the water.

Peter's hand found hers in the swell of water as they both gasped their last breaths.

He clasped onto that hand like it was life itself as the water slipped over their heads.

* * *

"Tony!"

Something clawed at the sleeve of Tony's hoodie as he thundered up the stairs, but he threw it off – almost tumbling right back down to the lab in his effort to do so. Steve and Sam thundered ahead of him, their shoes disappearing from sight up the next flight.

" _TONY_!"

Rhodey appeared in Tony's very red tinted line of sight, his bionic legs shooting up the stairs beside Tony to come to a stop right in front of him. Blocking his way up.

"Move."

There was enough venom in the word to kill a reasonably sized house pet.

"No." Rhodey thundered, reaching a hand out to rest on Tony's heaving chest. Keeping him in place. Or attempting to. Tony was three seconds away from shoving straight through it. "You need to think about what you're about to do-"

"Oh, I've thought about it." Tony hissed, pushing past Rhodey with everything he had. It worked, for a couple of steps at least. "In great, _graphic_ , detail."

Rhodey lunged in back in front of him, his metal braces slamming against the stairs as he parked himself on the step above.

"Attacking Ross now is not going to bring Peter back."

Tony stopped barely an inch away from him.  
"I'm not going to _attack_ him." Tony said, voice even and firm. Of everything that had happened in the last few days, this was the one thing he was sure of. "I'm going to kill him." Tony breathed through his teeth. "And then I am going to kill the next person who gets in my way, and the next after that until _I have my kid back_." He took another step forward, bringing him nose to nose with Rhodey. "Do not test me on this Rhodes."

Rhodey didn't move. Didn't step back or aside – but didn't push him away either. He let Tony stand there, and seethe, as he watched with that too calm face. Too understanding eyes.

"You cannot kill a United States Senator in your lounge-room." He said eventually – but for the first time he sounded unsure. And he had right to be.

Because that was exactly what Tony was about to do.

" _Fucking_ watch me."

Tony pushed past again and lunged up the remaining stairs to the landing, with Rhodey barely a step behind him. He threw open the door to the ground floor and thundered through the hall, twisting and turning in a blind rage until he found himself at the glass door of the recreation room.

Steve and Sam stood just inside the door, shoulder to shoulder, staring down at Ross who was spread across the three-seater couch like he _hadn't_ just waltzed into his own execution.

Ross's eyes darted up as Tony slid inside.

"Stark." He called, a smile twisting at his lips. His eyes ran Tony up and down with no small amount of pleasure. "You're looking a little run down – something keeping you up?"

Despite Tony's crippling need to lash out it was Steve who got the words out first.

"Where the hell is he?" Steve's voice echoed in the almost silent room. He hadn't spoke loudly, but he really didn't need to. Even Tony had to fight the urge to take a step back at the force of that voice.

Ross apparently didn't, as he remained lounging across the sofa – only his eyes lazily flicking towards the Captain.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." He shrugged, that twisted smile growing. It curled at the sides of his lips – crinkling the skin around his eyes.

"Don't play with us." Steve's voice cut across the room again. "This is not a game."

"It is to me."

"Then you've already lost."

The words were out of Tony's mouth before he realized he was speaking – but they were true.

He would ensure that much.

Ross didn't seem to agree. Those lazy eyes drifted back to Tony, fixating on the tension emanating from every inch of him, and basking in it.

"No, Stark." He said. "You have." He gave the coffee table just in front of him a nudge with his foot. Atop the table the Sokovia Accords slid further forward. "Accept it." That smile hardened. "Sign."

Tony's eyes dipped to the Accords.

He wanted to march across the room, seize the 3489 page document and beat Ross to death with it.

 _But if it got him Peter back…?_

"And if I do?"

A small chuckled slipped through Ross's smile. The sound burned deep in Tony's chest.

"Then I'm almost certain that everything will work out for you." Ross shrugged again. His eyes focused more heavily on Tony, taking in every inch of him. "And whatever you may, or may not have, miss-placed might crawl its way back home."

Tony threw himself across the room.

He would have done it. He was so close. His hands were only inches away from the Accords when Steve's iron grip latched onto both of his arms and wrenched him back.

Ross leapt to his feet – backing against the couch – but his smile didn't fade. If anything it grew.

He was _enjoying_ this.

"Go on." Ross said, reaching forward and snatching the Accords off of the table. "What else do you have to loose?" He threw them down at Tony's feet. Steve's grip tightened.

Somewhere in the room a phone started to ring – Tony barely noticed though as he fought to pull away from the iron grip Steve kept around his arms.

Tony watched as Ross pulled a phone from the breast pocket of his jack and raised it to his ear, that same smile boring down on Tony as he did.

The smile faded, however, when whoever was on the other line began to speak.

Faded completely, until it was gone. Replaced with wide eyes and a pallor that had to match Tony's.

Those wide eyes flicked up to Tony.

"What the _fuck_ have you done?"

* * *

And there it is!

Whoooooooow. Fucking finally – right!

…I told you Tony's life was only getting worse…

But please do tell me what you think! What are your speculations!?

(As per usual I apologise for any spelling or grammar errors throughout the story. I do not have a beta reader – despite having received offers from so many of you lovely, absolutely fabulous readers! To everyone who has offered to beta for me [and I am so sorry that I haven't had time to get back to you all personally] offering your time to this story is such a compliment that I can't even begin to thank you! As this story is nearing completion I will not be reaching out at this point [as I just don't have the time despite my greatest efforts] but will definitely hit you up if I decide to start on another fic – when life eases up a bit!)

Now to everyone who has read and commented, I can't thank you enough for being so patient with me, and still leaving me comments and reviews! They got me through some really long nights. Every word means so much and has me inching to get back to the keyboard sooner. When I set out to write my first Tony & Peter fic I never expected the response that I got – but I'm so glad I did as it has meant more than I could ever express.

My writing has always been such a personal thing – I've never shared it with anyone before fanfiction, despite having written for a long time, so to hear that you love it perhaps as much as I love the writers I follow has changed my life for the better. It's given me confidence and something solid to turn to when life gets hard – as it has tended too over the last couple of months.

I wont make a promise of when I will next update – I'm starting to see a pattern there – but know that this story will never be abandoned. As you have not abandoned me.


	7. The Search

Here it is – and all I can say is…I hope you like pain.

Lots and _lots_ of pain.

If the last chapter is where the shit hit the fan – this is the chapter where they sit in it.

Without further adieu…pain.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 7. THE SEARCH**

* * *

Tony's knuckles were still a vibrant shade of blue – marred with splits and cuts – even now, days later. Steve spared a thought for Ross's face, and what was left of his nose, but found he didn't really care. He didn't really care about a lot of things at the moment. Not the never-ending back-and-forth of the Accords. Not the lawsuit Ross was hurtling down on them. Not even the increased guard at the compound's edges, which had appeared mere hours after Ross had been carted away and had yet to disperse.

No. Steve found he could barely spare a thought for any of it.

The sight of Tony – silent, still and hunched so low in his chair that it was difficult to tell where one limb ended and another started – would haunt him until his final hour.

Rhodey had brought him an ice pack for his hand, but it sat abandoned on the bench behind Tony, where the other man had left it soon after Rhodey had left for the wreckage of the Raft.

Left to bring back the body.

Steve inched towards the dishevelled mass in the chair at the centre of the lab – pushed back far enough that he was no longer within reaching distance of the desk, but close enough to see every tiny detail that flicked across the many screens littering the desk. There somehow seemed to be even more then there had been only a few hours ago, when Steve had last trekked to this very position – just a foot or so behind what was left of his friend.

"Tony?"

Tony didn't so much as twitch. Steve moved a little closer, coming to rest by his left side. Tony's eyes were all that moved. Sliding back and forth across the collection of screens at a speed that left Steve feeling a little nauseous.

" _Tony_?"

Tony's eyes slid to meet his.

"Steve?"

Steve pulled a nearby chair over and sunk into it, close to Tony's side.

"What are you doing?" Steve murmured, watching the charts on the screens as they bent and changed every few moments. Numbers floating and changing about the edges.

Sea charts.

"Doing…?" Tony repeated – his eyes flicking back to the screens. The shining blue light left his once bight, brown eyes an almost sickening grey. "What time is it?" He murmured, pulling his eyes away and glancing around the room.

"Four."

Tony's eyes darted back to Steve. "…in the afternoon?"

Something clenched deep in Steve's stomach. "Morning." Steve answered softly. "It's Tuesday, Tony."

Tony's eyes drifted back to the screens.

"I'm searching." He answered slowly, as if only just remembering Steve's initial question.

The knot in Steve's cut loosened – just a little.

"They – Rhodey hasn't – found-" _a body_ , "-anything?"

"No."

Steve let out a shaky breath and they fell into silence.

It was Steve who broke it. "You should get some sleep." Tony said nothing. "Are you hungry? I can bring you something." Again Tony said nothing. If it weren't for the semi steady rise and fall of his chest Steve would have worried he was talking to a corpse. The screen's blue lights did nothing to help his already pale skin, and the bruise like bags under his eyes were so engrained now that Steve wondered if they'd ever fade. "You need to eat Tony."

Again nothing. Steve would have pushed. Any other day he would have pushed – berated the man to think of himself for _one goddamn_ minute, but not today. He just couldn't make himself.

The two of them fell into silence again. It stretched for several minutes. Deepening with every minute until the weight of it was almost unbearable.

"Please."

Steve's head snapped up from where it had fallen in his lap. Tony hadn't moved. His eyes were still fixed on those whirling blue screens – but Steve had heard him. Heard the whisper.

"What?" Steve rushed, moving a little closer to Tony's side. "What do you need?" Anything. He was almost certain he'd do just about anything right now if it meant fixing the situation just a little. Anything to ease the anguish that had settled deep in Tony's eyes days ago, and refused to leave since.

The thought that Rhodey might call at any minute – to give them the news none of them were ready to hear – left Steve feeling like he was on a clock. He was willing to do anything right now that might give the man a tendril of hope, of happiness, before it was all stripped away. And it would be.

If Peter was really dead, Tony – and everything Tony was – was about to die with him.

Tony's eyes remained fixed on the sea-charts.

"Just-" His lips quivered as he spoke, as if he'd forgotten how in the last few days. "Just talk." He murmured. "Don't just – don't-"

"I went to see a few apartments in Brooklyn last weekend." Steve said, leaning back into his chair but not moving away. "You would have laughed at my face when I saw what they were asking." Steve chuckled humourlessly. "Practically robbery." He waited for a response, because Tony always had a response. Especially when it came to Steve's real-estate dealings. That being said though Steve was entirely sure that if he hadn't put his foot down Tony would have brought him half of Brooklyn by now – despite the man's protests that he would never step a toe across that bridge.

For the first time since Steve had first broached the topic almost five years ago Tony didn't have a response.

"Tony-"

"Don't." Tony's voice was ragged, as if he'd been gurgling glass and the small cuts were so deep that the word caught and died in the slices in his throat.

"Just don't." He murmured and the two of them fell into silence for another moment. Again it was Tony who broke it.

"I got him a birthday present." His voice was so small that even Steve had to lean a little closer to catch the words. "Actually I got him ten presents – he's sixteen in August so I, you know, probably went a little over board." Something deep in Steve's chest clenched painfully at the words, and the emptiness on Tony's face as he muttered them. He'd seen the man talk about lawn mowers with more vigour. "5,000 piece Star Wars Lego set. This new filter he keeps talking about – for his camera. An Audi." Steve's eyebrows shot up, just a little. Tony must have caught the movement. "I thought I could, you know, maybe teach him how to drive." He said with a small shrug, as if the massive milestone that he was reaching for with the kid meant nothing – and Steve was tempted to correct him. To make him see just how much it would have meant. But he didn't. Maybe Tony wanted it to mean nothing. Maybe it would make what was happening now easier. "May doesn't have a car – who does in this city anymore – and the kid really needs the help. You should have seen the carnage he left behind last year when the whole Vulture thing went down. Hundreds of thousands in damage and the kid only made it like seven blocks." Tony's chuckle was short lived. It died in his throat after only a couple of seconds, and the two of them folded back into silence.

"Tony-"

He barely got the word out before Tony cut him off.

"You know my dad never stopped looking for you." Tony said, and Steve started. That was not what he'd been expecting. At all. It was almost an unwritten rule between them now. Tony didn't mention his parents, and Steve never breathed a word about Bucky. "Over thirty years – millions of dollars – _hours_ a day poring over maps and sea charts and satellites." Tony went on, still staring up at the sea charts, nothing but his eyes and mouth moving. Steve wondered if he was really aware of what he was saying. "He was one of the first to get a real camera up there," Tony nodded up at the ceiling, and the sky above, "and you know what he did with it while Russia and America were busy measuring dicks in space?" He asked, brown eyes glazed and blank as he watched the currents move. "He left it pointing at the ocean." The words were barely more than a whisper. "All I wanted, all I wanted, was for him to care about me even _half_ as much-"

Steve's chest clenched again. "You were his son-" Steve started, a deep weight settling over him. _Jesus_. How long had he been hurting Tony? Even the memory of him enough to rip something from Tony that he'd loved. He'd needed.

Steve sometimes wondered how the man could even bare to look at him.

"-but you were his _creation_." Tony cut in. "Every inch of you a testament to his genius." The words curled out of his mouth with practiced ease. Practiced resentment. "A living, breathing, monument to his ego." Each word cut Steve a little more – but he couldn't deny them. He'd always felt like more of an object than a friend to Howard, a valued object – certainly – but never one that had any worth beyond what he could do for the military. Do for Howard. "You know, if Barnes hadn't gotten to him first, I think he would have wasted away waiting for you." Tony was still muttering. "Told him as much once. He didn't take it well."

A shaking hand ghosted across Tony's left forearm. Steve's eye caught sight of a small scare there – long healed – and his guilt ebbed away to fury.

"I guess irony really is a stone cold bitch that comes for us all in the end – because here I am, rotting away in this chair with satellites and sea charts," Tony went on as if he weren't admitting his deepest secrets. Things Steve suspected he might have taken to his grave, "and I finally get it. Why all the wasted time and money meant _nothing_. Not a goddamn thing. Not if – not if I might – if he might-" Not for the first time Tony's voice broke, but it did so so violently that Steve worried Tony was about to break with it.

Steve moved on instinct. Reaching out with a shaking hand of his own to grasp Tony's shoulder. A wasted attempt keep Tony tethered to him, to all of them, and not slipping away as Steve had feared he might from the moment they heard what had happened. Tony seemed to not notice the contact. "He's not gone." He choked, eyes still weaving over the screens. They were blank. Empty. "He can't be." He murmured, resolve settling in his voice. Steve wasn't sure if he preferred it to the god awful begging, or if it would only make things worse later, if…if the worst had happened. "He just can't – because then what would be the point of all of this. Of us." Tony's voice was soft, but the words hit with the force of a semi-truck. "Of all the sweat, and the blood and the _pain_." And Tony's voice dripped with it. Steve felt as if he might slip and fall into the spiral of despair that the man was _finally_ showing. Finally letting others see. "Of everything that we've sacrificed. What would be the point of it all if we can't save a kid like that?" Those brown eyes finally pulled away from the screens across from him and locked onto Steve's. The sheer desperation and _need_ in them was all consuming. "He's not gone." Tony went on and Steve – despite how much he knew he should say something, prepare the man just _a little_ – couldn't bring himself to say a word. "He's not gone." Tony murmured, nodding to himself and turning back to the sea charts. "I just have to find him."

Steve knew he should say something. Should do something. _Anything_. Tony was his friend and he was wasting away. All of this hope would crush him if they found a body. Steve knew he had to do something to ease that.

But he just couldn't.

Instead he fled.

"I'm going to go get you some food."

Steve was up and out of the lab before Tony could respond. Not that he did. Steve glanced back just as the door slid closed behind him and the sight of the man still curled up in the chair – just as he'd found him – dug into the wound, deep in his chest, that the last few days had left, and festering there.

Steve took a step towards the stairs that would lead him up to the elevator but stopped short at the sight of a figure making their way down.

"Bruce?" Steve said, and the man's head snapped up. Brown eyes met Steve's with no small amount of sympathy. His utter despair at the situation must have been as clear on his own face as it was on Tony's. He tried to push it down, but he doubted he was succeeding at that either. There was a small plate of food in Bruce's hands and Steve latched onto it as a chance to change the subject. He nodded at the food, "I was just going up to get something."

Bruce glanced down the plate of toast and fruit. "Yeah – it's got to be hitting the twenty-four hour mark since he last ate, but I don't like our chances."

Steve nodded and they fell into silence.

Maybe it was Tony rubbing off on him – his words that the universe _owed_ them hadn't stopped ringing in Steve's head – but Steve couldn't help but break the silence. He had to know if – but he didn't dare ask Tony.

"Do you think he's really dead?"

Bruce's eyes darted to his. Bruce had always had the wisest eyes in the team. Tony's were _genius_ – they sparked and erupted with knowledge just like the man himself – but his general lack of common sense had always excluded him from the _wise_ category. Clint's were most often crinkled with laughter or mischief, but every so often they settled and you could see the scars the man kept to himself. The weariness. Sam was much the same – but opposite. He wore his scares quite openly. His weariness. He channelled it into his work with others, and they trusted him for it. Trusted that if he could bare his demons, so could they. Rhodes was much the same as well. Channelling his demons to give him strength.

Natasha was not. Her eyes were like mirrors. One tended to see more of themself then of her when they looked. Their own fears and desires. That was her gift – to read a person and mirror what they needed back to them. Once or twice though – between one moment and the next – the mirror broke and Steve could see through. And what he'd found there was terrifying. Natasha had no demons, he had quickly come to realize. There was no room for petty demons. The devil himself hid behind her eyes – in her past.

Steve had often wondered what the others saw in his eyes. What Natasha saw – as she would certainly see the most.

Where the ghosts in his heart written just as clearly in his eyes?

Bruce's eyes were certainly the wisest though. The man had seen the devil in himself and others more clearly than most ever would, and it had left him with a unique insight into people. An empathy for both men and monsters.

"They're still digging corpses out of the wreck but they haven't been able to surface the whole thing yet." Bruce said. Steve imagined if he hadn't had the plate in his hand he would have removed his glasses and started to clean them. He did it often when he needed an excuse to lower his eyes. Just like Tony with the tools that he twisted around his hands fast enough to make even Steve appreciative of his dexterity. A coping mechanism. "It's too dense. So they won't be able to make a real estimate of casualties for at least another couple of days-"

Steve cut him off.

"That's not what I asked."

Bruce sighed, dipping his head for just a moment before he looked back up and met Steve's searching eyes. "God I hope not." He murmured. "Because it wont be just Peter." Bruce nodded towards the sliding glass doors – and the genius beyond them. "It'll kill him too."

Steve said nothing. The words were true – they both knew it.

"Where are the others?" He asked instead.

"Natasha and Clint went with Rhodes to Raft." Bruce said, leaning against the wall. Exhaustion was setting in hard throughout the entire Compound. "Sam went to check on May – she's still in the dark. He thought it best not to say anything until we knew…something. For sure."

"Do we know anymore about what happened?"

"No." Bruce said. "And we might not." He added with a huff. "The water damage is extensive."

Steve reached out and took the plate from Bruce's hands as the man slumped more heavily against the wall.

"I'll take it to him." Steve said. "You look exhausted. You should get some sleep."

"So should you."

Steve's eyes drifted back to the opaque lab doors.

"I'll sleep when he does."

Bruce nodded. "Then I have a feeling you're in for a long few days." He glanced at the lab doors as well. "We all are." He pulled himself off the wall with no small amount of effort. "Wake me if you hear anything – I told Clint to call us if-." He didn't seem to be able to get the words out, and Steve couldn't help but be slightly glad. He didn't want to hear them. "He shouldn't have to hear it on his own." Bruce's eyes drifted back to the doors. "He can't. I don't want to think about what he might do."

Steve nodded, giving the man a small push up the stairs to get him moving. Bruce moved with no resistance, heading back up to the lift.

"Thanks, Bruce." Steve murmured after him.

Steve stood in the hall for longer than he would ever admit. Trying to find the courage to head back into the lab. To deliver the news he might have to if the others called.

But they hadn't called yet. Hadn't found anything yet.

It was that – the infinitesimal amount of hope still left for them – that finally let him step back into the lab.

Tony was just as he'd left him. Curled in a ball within his large desk chair, eyes wide and dancing as they swept across the screens continually.  
Steve reclaimed his seat beside him.

"Hey." Steve reached a hand out to rest against Tony's shoulder. "Tony." When he didn't respond Steve gave the shoulder under his hand a soft squeeze. " _Tony_."

Tony's eyes drifted over to him, clearly surprised to see him there, but barely reacting. Steve doubted the man had the energy to react to an alien invasion at the moment.

Tony's eyes drifted down to the plate of food Steve placed on the desk in front of them.

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes, you are."

Steve sank back into his own seat, pulling his hand away from Tony's shoulder so he could prop his head up on his palm while his elbow rested on the hand rest. His eyes settled on the swirling screens as Tony's settled on him.

The man's wide, brown eyes were bloodshot and slightly dazed as he spoke. "What are you doing?"

Steve's gaze darted over to the genius.

"Searching."

Steve let his eyes drift back to the screens and a moment later he felt Tony's do the same. The other man shifted, just slightly, in his seat and Steve moved just a little closer so that Tony could rest against his shoulder. And he did.

Steve had never thought of Tony as small – not when the man seemed to command a room no matter who was in it – but here, in the lab, stripped of _everything_ he seemed small and fragile.

Steve moved just a little closer, letting Tony lean more fully against him.

This he could do. He could hold the smaller man up. Could keep him above the tide threatening to drown him. He would.

He wasn't loosing anyone else.

* * *

"I knew they would have both fit."

Wanda's eyes opened just enough for her to glare at Peter as he stared over at her.

" _What_?" Her voice croaked. Her lips were cracked and blood still plastered across her mouth and down her throat.

"Rose and Jack – in 'Titanic' – I knew they would have both fit on the door thing."

They weren't on a door – per-say – it was a piece of curved, metal debris that had remained on the surface after the _thing_ – giant submarine or boat or whatever the hell it was – had slipped beneath. Peter had heaved both himself and an unconscious Wanda onto the long piece of debris as soon as they had surfaced, and they had remained there for almost four days if the rising and setting of the sun across the horizon from them was any indicator.

They had been enveloped by water within minutes in their tiny closet in the submarine thing, but as it had sank the shifting of pressure had given the two of them just enough time to make a break for the surface. Wanda had unscrewed the hinges in the door and blown the whole thing out – despite that she'd welded the door clean shut – and from there Peter had been able to drag them out. By the time they had been making a break for it the whole thing was sinking fast, pulling them further and further down, causing the water to swell and push against them with every movement.

Peter had accepted they were dead. There was no way they'd reach to surface. There was too much weight pulling against them – even for him.

And then the whole submarine monstrosity had started to rise.

Peter wasn't ashamed to admit that for a second he really thought god was reaching out for them. To save them. Or maybe Tony. The Iron Men had held up the whole ferry while it had been falling apart, it wasn't such a stretch that they'd be able to hold up the giant submarine thingy. Was it?

The red sparks where what gave away the truth.

Wanda – from beneath the water – had risen their metal tomb just high enough for Peter to pull them both from the submarine and to the surface. By the time their heads broke through the water Peter's lungs had been screaming, his head pounding and his limbs protesting even the smallest of movements – but none of that had mattered, because Wanda hadn't been moving.

Peter had launched himself towards a floating piece of debris, dragging Wanda with him, and then hauled them both on top. She had been breathing – barely – but not woken when he'd called. When he'd begged.

And then the bleeding started.

At first it had just been her nose, but the blood had poured down her face, pooling at her throat, and Peter had moved beyond panic and straight into hysteria. And then her ears had followed. The blood leaking from those was slower, it didn't pour down the side of her head like the blood from her nose, but it had frightened him more. He was in no way a medical student, but blood from the ears was _bad_ – he knew that much. He'd done what he could, keeping them both above the water and pulling Wanda into his side in an attempt to keep her warm. But after a few hours Peter was starting to feel the bite of the cool air on his soaked skin and clothes, and he knew that it wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. He was no supersoldier. He didn't radiate heat like Steve – quite the opposite. Spiders lacked the ability to thermo-regulate, and Peter had found out the hard way – stuck inside an abandoned subway tunnel in the dead of January – that he now lacked the ability as well, meaning that when he was cold _he stayed cold_. After a few hours Wanda was warmer than he was, and he was clinging to her for heat.

The first day and night had passed in a blur of fear, bone-deep chill and _silence_. Once the submarine had sunk, and the water around them had stilled, Peter had been left along, clinging to Wanda for hours until the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and darkness claimed them. No matter how many times Peter called, Wanda didn't wake once throughout the night. Her nose and ears did eventually stop bleeding, leaving her blood stained, pale and looking entirely too much like a corpse. Peter clung to her to make sure that she never slid from the small piece of metal they were perched on, but even when the waves had stopped and the chances of either of them being thrown off were slim he didn't release his hold. Cradled in his arms he could feel her breathing. Could even feel the soft beating of her heart through both of their clothes. It was the soft beating that got him through that first night where the seconds dragged, and he started to worry that the sun might never rise.

 _You're not alone._

 _You're not alone._

 _You're not alone._

Eventually the sun did rise – and not long after it Wanda woke. She was groggy, her eyes squinted shut against the sun and sporting a migraine that had her vomiting the majority of the morning. Apparently lifting over a hundred tonnes of metal wasn't as easy as she'd made it look. By the time the second night came around the vomited had passed, and the two of them had long folded into silence. It was hard to talk. Peter had been feeling dehydration setting in for hours – he could only imagine how Wanda felt after almost a full day of dry heaving on and off – and his limbs had been growing steadily number from the cold. They were both finally starting to drift into restless sleep when it occurred to Peter that succumbing to unconsciousness perhaps wasn't the best idea – but exhaustion had set into his bones, and Wanda was already asleep again. Or unconscious. He hadn't called to her. He'd just held on and let unconsciousness take him as well.

They did both wake, and the third day passed much faster than the first two. Neither of them had the energy to stay awake for very long, so the day slipped away from them. As it did Wanda grew paler, and Peter colder.

It was only now, as the sun was beginning to set again, and Wanda was quickly slipping back into unconsciousness in his arms, that it truly set in that they were dying.

He'd known that they were – logically. Stranded without water, in need of some serious medical attention in Wanda's case, and in sub-freezing temperatures all combined to form a pretty fatal conclusion. Peter had known that from the beginning.

There was a difference between _knowing_ and _feeling_ though. As they drifted through the water and Peter watched the sun set slowly across the horizon for the third time he could _feel_ himself dying. Could feel the weight in his limbs. Each breath that caught in his lungs. The cold air, and his continually plummeting body temperature, seemed to steel each breath before he could take it.

Most of all he could feel himself fading.

Each blink was harder. Each time he drifted into unconsciousness the sun had moved further.

He remembered, what felt like so long ago now, when Tony had told him that he'd died at the Compound. He'd skirted around the issue for almost a week, dodging Peter's every question and demand to know what had happened, focusing instead on Peter's recovery. Almost frantically. When he'd finally admitted what had happened to Peter – in the vaguest terms possible – Peter hadn't known how to really process what he was being told.

He'd _died_. He'd fixated on it. In the months that followed even thought of it had been enough to send Peter into a spiral, so he'd boxed the whole thing up and refused to deal with it. How could he? How could he deal with something so consuming? He'd been stuck on idea that he had been _dead_ and now he wasn't? Been so determined to cling to the divide of life and death that had always seemed like such a distinct line to him.

But here, feeling the swell of the water beneath him and the absolute awareness that he was fading with every minute, the divide began to blur. The parts of him that were too cold to feel, where they dead already? Perhaps there was really no line between life and death. Peter certainly didn't feel like it in that moment. He felt as if he were existing somewhere between the two – that perhaps he always had and had never noticed. He'd been inches away from death before – on more occasions that he would ever admit to May or Tony – but it hadn't felt like this. Now there was no adrenaline. No fight. Just the warmth of the sun slipping from him, and the knowledge that he wouldn't feel it again.

Peter was too cold, and Wanda too weak.

No. Tonight would take them both.

The all-consuming fear that Peter had been fighting since Tony told him he'd died that day at the Compound finally faded away, and for the life of him Peter couldn't imagine why he'd been fighting it. Why he'd been afraid.

If this was death – the soft swaying of an ocean and the dying red light of the sun eclipsing over a vibrant, blue, ocean – then it wasn't so bad. Wasn't so terrifying.

He knew that if his brain weren't so fuzzy and his limbs quite so heavy that he might not think so. That he'd been thinking of May and Ned, who had no idea what had happened to him, of Tony who knew too much, of everything he was leaving behind and everything that he'd wanted to do. But just like the sun those thoughts were slipping away from him – dipping under the horizon as the water beneath him swelled and rippled, and the silence all around lulled his eyes to slip closed.

He forced them open for just one more minute. He wanted to see the sun slip away – just one more time. Wanted to dwell in the little warmth it offered for as long as he could, before he slipped away with it.

Between one blink and the next the sun dipped lower.

And between another a black mass appeared in the dying, red, light.

A ship.

* * *

Wheeeeew. That was a journey.

I hope the wait was worth it…do let me know below!

I find myself without much to say at the end of this chapter except that the next chapter is already underway and that having you all stay with this fic through my ups and downs definitely got me through last year – and I am more grateful than I could ever express in words.

The community that I have found here – the support and confidence that it has afforded me – means everything. My dream is to write, and you all make that dream a reality that I had never imagined I would have.

So happy New Year – happy new chapter – and I will see you for the next stage (spoiler alert: _there will be hugging. A_ _ **fuck tonne**_ _of hugging_.)


	8. The Rescue

Wow. So apparently procrastination is a writer's best friend because I smashed this baby out in two days while I _definitely_ should have been doing other work.

Worth it.

You have been so patient with me through every arduous turn – and wait – in this fic so you have all definitely earned this speedy update, and the pure, unapologetic feels that practically seep from it.

Get out your tissues.

I cried. And I fucking wrote it.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 8. THE RESCUE**

* * *

"So they haven't found anything?"

Even the small tablet in Steve's hand felt too heavy. His exhaustion seemed to be tripling with every photograph he flipped through, weighing down on him as he sat, sprawled up against the hallway wall. What had once been the Raft – his friend's prison – was nothing short of gutted.

"Not yet." Rhodey said, his eyes never leaving the opaque glass that was currently separating the team from Tony. "The damn thing was too big to dredge up so they're sending divers down instead."

The genius was still in his chair, eyes fixed on the mirage of screens around the lab. He hadn't moved in hours. Hadn't spoken. Hadn't done anything but breathe and watch those screens. Rhodey hadn't taken his eyes off of him though since returning from the wreckage of the Raft – as if he were afraid the man might disappear between one minute and the next.

Steve buried the crippling thought that he may have already – and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

"And?" Steve prompted.

"Nothing concrete yet." Rhodey went on. "They're only bringing up the bodies now, and it will take some time to-" his voice faded – just for a minute – but his eyes never left the man on the other side of the glass. "Identify them."

Across from them both – sprawled across the bottom of the staircase that lead up to the lift – was Clint. He kicked out at the concrete wall. Hard.

"How hard can it be to spot the corpse of a teenager – you'd think it would stand out-"

Bruce stood near Rhodey – leant up against the glass. Clint's words seemed to hit him physically. His chest caving in and eyes scrunching shut as a wave of green passed over them.

"Clint." Steve cut him off. The word wasn't wasn't harsh – just as Clint's hadn't been intended to be. Steve could see that much. Could see between the sarcasm and rage to the father who was coming apart at the seams as he watched another parent _loose his son_.

No. Clint wasn't coping.

Tony was barely surviving.

And the rest of them were not far behind.

"How's May?" Steve asked, turning to Sam who was leant up against the wall by the stairs, only a foot or so from Clint.

Sam gave a small, tense, shrug from behind his folded arms.

"She's not blind – she knows something's up – but she's hanging in there." He said. "I think having the other kid around is helping."

Bruce's pulled his eyes from Tony's forlorn form and glanced at Sam.

"Other kid?"

"Yeah – Ned. Peter's friend." Sam added. "He's practically living at the apartment now." He attempted to curve his lips into something of a grin, but the movement looked painful and fell far short. "Kid's a little Stark in the making – keeps hacking into satellite feeds and facial recognition data-bases when he thinks I'm not looking."

Clint's foot collided with the concrete wall again, harder this time. Steve was starting to worry he might break the foot – and then worried even more that that might be _exactly_ what Clint intended to do.

"You should tell him not to bother – we got it covered."

All eyes fell on Tony and the variable sea of screens that were each broadcasting a different set of information – a different trail. A different glimmer of hope that was fading with every passing hour.

Looking at them for too long left even Steve – with his serum advanced eyes – feeling queasy.

"And Ross?"

"In Geneva." Natasha murmured from her place, seated on the steps just above Clint. Her eyes were on Tony as well. "Story is that it's something to do with the Accords, but he's checked into a private medical suite there."

"Probably trying to fix what Tony left of his nose before the press gets wind." Sam ground out – the loathing dripping from the words would probably have been enough to kill Ross on the spot if he'd been present.

"It also sports some of the best security services money can buy." Natasha continued, her eyes flicking across the screens in the lab with just as much speed as Tony's. Perhaps more. Steve was starting to worry about her as well. As far as he was aware it was down to himself, her and Tony who hadn't slept since the school had been attacked. Tony looked _wrecked_. Steve doubted very much that he would be able to even move from the chair if he tried. Even Steve was feeling it. The tablet in his hands still felt like it weighed a goddamn tonne, and it was getting to the point where he, too, was finding it difficult to stay standing for too long. He hadn't felt this weak for a long time. Not since he was a scrawny child, forced into his bed with pneumonia and practically sat on by Bucky to ensure that he stayed there until he was somewhat able to breathe again.

Natasha, though, looked…fine. There was dark circles beneath her eyes that looked painful – but other than that Steve was having a hard time picking out any signs of exhaustion, and it was more than a little concerning.

Even after Clint had come back from the Raft – practically dragged back by Rhodey who could see the man's imminent meltdown fast approaching – Natasha had stayed behind. She had only appeared at the Compound little more than an hour ago, seeming to materialize on the steps where the others were monitoring Tony.

The sight of her had nearly had Steve demanding that she head upstairs to get some sleep – he was even tempted to pull her up there himself, and stay with her to ensure she got some sleep, despite his almost painful _need_ to stick close to Tony – because, despite her almost seamless appearance, her eyes were just _wrong_.

The mirror behind them, so perfect that almost no one ever saw what was behind it, was shattered, and Steve could _see_. And god he wished he couldn't. God he wished he could wash away darkness in those eyes – the empty, gnawing hole at their centre that seemed far too deep, and far too much for anyone to bare.

He had always had the vague awareness that while the rest of them had been dragged into this mess one way or another – through circumstance or choice – Natasha had been born into it. Moulded by it. She hadn't seen light until she was already a woman, and Steve imagined it had been nothing short of blinding.

One look into those eyes as she had descended the stairs had put her right below Tony when it came to the quickly growing list of people he was _terrified to let out of his sight_.

Steve wasn't afraid of what she'd do to herself – unlike Tony, who looked seconds away from self-destruction – no, he was afraid of what she'd do to others.

It was no secret that the team had killed – sometimes they just had to, no matter how much it hurt – but Natasha was a _killer_. Cold-blooded. And it terrifying.

Steve didn't want to think about how high the body count might just get on this – and especially didn't want to think that hers might join it.

He felt like everything was seconds away from spiralling so far out of control that they might never be able to fix it. Fix themselves.

"Why would he need private security?" Sam asked. His arms were folded so tightly across his chest that it had to be hard to even draw in a breath. "He has an entire army at his fingertips."

"Perhaps it has finally dawned on him just _who_ he has ruined." Bruce murmured from his place at the window. He, too, looked exhausted. Like every minute this went on was draining more and more from him. "And the kind of reach that he might have." All eyes fell of Tony again.

Another _thud_ echoed through the hall as Clint's foot collided with the wall. The concrete cracked – just a little – and Steve suspected Clint's foot did as well if the grimace of pain that stretched across the man's face was anything to go off.

"He shouldn't bother either – if Pete's dead, Ross will be joining him."

The fear that had been steadily building in his chest – fear of loosing _each and every one of them if this ended badly_ – bubbled over.

"Clint-"

"You can spew whatever platitudes you want, Cap. That is not up for debate." Clint shot across the room – his voice so hard that Steve was almost surprised it didn't leave a dent in the concrete wall beside him, just as his foot had. "If he has murdered a child – _Tony's_ child – there is nothing on this goddamn planet that will save him."

Steve closed his eyes.

"We cannot kill a Senator."

The words were barely a whisper. They were true. Killing Ross would end them. End all that they were trying to build – but it barely mattered, and Steve knew it.

Knew that his hands would be the first around the man's neck if they found a body.

" _We_ won't." Clint argued. "Nobody will." He added smoothly, rising to a sitting position on the step, his eyes deepening. The knowledge that Natasha was not the only one among them to kill in cold-blood hit Steve like a slap. "Not technically."

"What-" Steve started – but there was no fight in his voice. Not really. He was cut off before he could even really pretend to argue against the idea.

Natasha voice was almost lulling – a murmur that spread across the room and settled in the chest of everyone who heard it.

" _If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?_ "

The weight of the words – and their meaning – was almost unbearable.

"Or, more accurately," Clint added, " _if a body is dissolved so perfectly – with an assorted cocktail of hydrofluoric and sulphuric acids - in a titanium bathtub, was there even a murder_?"

Steve knew he should argue. Should be the voice of reason – but reason had abandoned him when it had abandoned a child to drown. So Steve abandoned it.

Steve's eyes fell back down to the tablet.

"This is all that's left?" He asked, flipping through the picture again.

Rhodey, whose forehead had tilted forward to rest against the glass that separated him from Tony, answered without looking over.

"Yeah – the whole thing's split open like a 'banana-split' in a gun barrel."

"Jesus." Steve breathed as he swiped from one photo to the next. "What could do this?"

Vision – who had been silent and still in the very corner of the room for so long that Steve had almost forgotten he was there – answered.

"Wanda."

That was enough to drag even Rhodey's eyes away from the lab. Six pairs of eyes swivelled to met Vision's.

" _What_?" Clint breathed.

"The Raft was a bonded Titanium-alloy. The hull doors almost a hundred tonnes each. It would not break under any conditions it would naturally come across in that area of the Atlantic." Vision answered without emphasis – without anything at all. His eyes, like the other's had been focused in on the lab – but unlike the other's he seemed to be watching the screens, like Tony, taking in every line that crossed them. "The wearing on the rotary on the hull doors – but lack thereof on the doors themselves – shows that they were forced open under great duress but no physical damage was inflicted." He went on. "The pressure gauges also recorded that that pressure shifted as the Raft sunk – as if it had risen before falling – inexplicably."

"She _lifted_ that thing!?" The pure astonishment in Sam's voice was mirrored in the stunned expressions all around him.

"Perhaps." Vision nodded, his eyes finally falling from the screens inside the lab. They dropped to the floor, and his shoulders followed. "It is the only possible explanation I can think of that fits the damage."

"This thing is thousands of tonnes of metal – she could barely lift a car in Sokovia." Bruce said, disbelief clouding every word.

"She managed to throw a few in Germany." Sam countered.

"Indeed." Vision said. His eyes remained fix on the floor. "And her power has grown since then." He suddenly seemed just as tired as the rest of them. "Exponentially."

There was a brief silence as tried – and likely failed – to process that.

"How do you know that?" Steve finally asked – his brain spinning with enough questions to make him feel slightly nauseous again.

Vision's hesitation was brief, but unmistakable.

"I feel it." He breathed. One hand twitched upwards, a shaking finger trailing along the stone in his dipped forehead. "I feel her."

"And what do you feel now?" Steve asked, his breath catching in his chest, because he knew the answer that was coming. Could see it in every line of Vision's exhausted frame.

"Nothing." Vision murmured. "I have felt nothing since the Raft was reported lost."

The words were followed by another silence.

Rhodey broke it. "You knew she was there." The words were not a question, but Vision answered none the less.

"I did." He said. "I did not believe it would assist the situation to fear for two over one. There was nothing more that we could do-" Those eyes, which had been so firmly fixed on the floor that Steve was shocked he hadn't burned a hole through it yet, slid closed. "And I was hesitant to reveal her part in fear of repercussions." The hand that had risen to run a finger over the stone in his forehead did so again – lingering there. "It is no secret that the Accords were crafted in fear of her." The hand slid down from his hand to rest against his chest – closing into a fist above where his heart would be, if he had one. And Steve, in that moment, was sure that even without the organ Vision was drowning that pain that emanated there, threatening to swallow him. Just like the rest of them. "I did not want to loose her again."

The next silence was longer. Harder.

"Is she dead?"

Steve didn't know who asked – it might have been him for all the awareness he had at the moment – but it didn't really matter. The answer was all that mattered. And it was crippling.  
"I do not know."

Sam's arms tightened around his chest – so tight now that they had to be serving a serious risk to his very real need to keep breathing.

"If she lifted it, maybe they got out?" He argued.

Rhodey's eyes had drifted back to Tony – his forehead pressed up painfully hard against the glass.

"It never hit the surface again." The words seemed to slip out of his lips without his awareness. "Pressure readings show that it stopped sinking for a short time, but never re-surfaced."

"Holding that much weight would have exhausted her quickly." Vision murmured, his head tipping even lower as he pressed his fist harder against his chest. "If she did lift it, she would have lost consciousness quickly."

Sam was nodding quickly, but Steve suspected it was an attempt to keep himself from shaking.

"If they were together Peter might have been able to pull them out?" Sam argued, again.

The silence that followed was hollow.

"Perhaps." Vision murmured.

The tablet slipped out of Steve's hands and hit the concrete floor with an echoing crack. Steve's hands – both too heavy, and too light to keep from shaking – curled inwards and over his head as he buried it in his chest, curling tighter against the wall. A silent sob rocked him and it was everything he could do to keep from splintering.

Had they lost them _both_?

Lost the kid with too much still to do – too much still to live for and experience – and the girl who had lost too much already. Who had been beaten and broken and gotten back up _every single time_.

They were so young. They were so _young_.

Steve felt like he was about to vomit.

A sudden movement across from Steve had his head snapping back up.

Clint had risen from his step and crossed the hallway before any of them could move – but even his speed could not hide how his every limb seemed to be _quivering_.

He didn't leave the hallway – and Steve wasn't sure what he would have done if he'd tried – coming to a stop at the other end.

Standing still the quivering made him look as if he were slitting apart.

" _Fuck_."

With more force than Steve thought he could conjure Clint struck out at the corner of the wall. His foot connected with a sharp _crack_ and the concrete splintered at the sides, debris raining down onto the floor. Clint followed it – due to having finally succeeded in breaking his leg or because the idea that they had lost _both_ children was just too much, Steve didn't know. He curled in on himself on the floor. Holding himself together with pure will.

Everything in Steve was telling him to go over to the man – but he couldn't move. The nausea, and crushing weight in every limb, was paralysing. He didn't think he'd make it a foot before he passed out.

The others seemed to be experiencing something similar because for too long no one moved. No one even twitched – as if they could hold themselves in this moment, before they knew anything for sure.

Before the truth broke them.

"Have you told Tony this?" Rhodey's words sounded painful, and jarring – as he if were forcing them out of a throat that just refused to co-operate.

"No." Vision's voice didn't break – Steve wondered it if could – but he didn't straighten from his position by the far windows, curled in on himself.

Rhodey nodded, slowly. His forehead trailing up and down the glass that separated them from the lab – and the man beyond.

"Don't – not until we know more." Rhodey murmured. "He doesn't need another life weighing on him."

* * *

Peter barely felt the hands that clasped around his upper arms, hauling him up from the metal debris. He barely felt his arms at all – just the vague sensation of something warm settling around his waist as he was lifted into the air. He slipped in and out of awareness – some jarring movements bringing him halfway to consciousness before he slipped away again.

Being hauled into the air. More sets of arms grasping onto him as he was pulled over something solid and lowered back down. More hands again – hands pressing against his chest, lingering at the side of his throat and at his wrist.

Voices. Voices all around him. Calling out – to him, to each other, Peter wasn't sure. It didn't matter. He could barely hear them. Barely feel as he was hauled off the ground again by several pairs of hands and moved. By the time he was set back down he was already drifting again. Even the hands all around him – tearing at his clothes, lingering on his chest and pressing something cold, and plastic feeling, over his lips and nose that forced air down into his sluggish lungs – weren't enough to ward off the exhaustion setting over him.

He was too cold.

He wanted to go home – wanted to wrap himself in every blanket in the apartment and watch _The Empire Strikes Back_ for the millionth time. He wanted tosee May. And Ned. And Tony.

Something warm and wet slid its way down Peter's cheek from his closed eyes.

He was too cold. Too tired.

 _I'm sorry_.

He wasn't sure if he said the words out loud – or if anyone heard them. He wasn't sure if anyone was meant to, or whom they were for.

He was sorry for a lot of things.

Sorry for not being better – for not being able to get himself out of Ross's clutches. Sorry that he'd let things spiral out of control. Sorry that he'd caused Tony more trouble than he was probably worth. Sorry that he'd thrown Todd Newton's ball over the school fence in second grade – though not really. The kid a dick, even at eight.

Sorry that he was leaving them – he didn't want to. God. He didn't want to.

He wanted to force his way through another one of May's culinary experiments. He wanted to sit in line for hours out the front of the closest cinema to him and Ned waiting for premier of whatever movie was coming out next. Wanted to be with down in the lab with Tony – wanted to see the way the man's whole face seemed to light up when he worked. Wanted to feel the joy of sparking that smile. Peter still remembered the first time he saw it. When the two of them had been messing around with the holographic systems when Peter had used it to play a video Ned had linked him too. If Peter had known that watching rap remixes of Steve's PSA's would make Tony laugh as hard as he did Peter would have made his own months ago. The man had seemed so free – so light – and Peter had felt light with him.

Loved, even.

He'd felt loved when Tony looked across the lab bench at him with the ghost of a smile still etched in the lines of his face. And he'd felt love in return.

He loved the man. Just like he loved May. Loved Ned.

He wanted them back. He wanted them all back.

Wanted Peter Parker back.

Between that thought and the next all of those wants faded away, and Peter with them.

* * *

It was Rhodey who caught the movement first. With his forehead still pressed up against the glass separating them from the lab it would have been impossible for him to miss it.

Steve only caught Rhodey's sudden shift.

The whole group had been silent and unmoving for so long that any shift was enough to grab Steve's attention – and Rhodey's almost painfully looking shift from leaning heavily against the glass to ramrod straight with his hands pressed up against it was enough to set him on edge.

The guttural, " _Tony_ -" that slid through his lips had Steve on his feet in seconds.

The first thing that registered was Tony's empty chair – and Steve's world ground to a halt. No.

He was gone. He was _gone_ – Steve had looked away for a single second and lost him. Lost another –

His feet thundered into the lab right behind Rhodey, his mind barely aware. Tony was gone – jesus, _Tony was gone_ – they had to find him – had to – had –

And then he found him.

Tony was on his knees in front of the chair, looking like he might buckle to the floor at any second, and gripping the closest monitor on the desk with white fingers.

 _No_.

They'd found a body. They must have. They had found a body and Tony had found out through whatever mainframe he had hacked.

Oh god. No. They weren't going to get through this. They weren't going to get _Tony_ through this-

But Tony wasn't catatonic – wasn't screaming or crying or tearing apart the lab in a murderous rage like Steve had spent hours dreading.

No.

He was typing.

He was typing faster than Steve had ever seen him type in his life, fingers almost blurring as they slammed down on the keys with enough force to damage them. "Tony?" Rhodey had dropped to his knees beside the shacking mess of his friend. " _Tony_!?" He croaked, desperation seeping into his voice. He reached out and grasped onto Tony's shoulders as Steve fell to his knees at the man's other side. The others were crowded around them – barely daring to breathe. "Tony, what's happening-" Rhodey called again, doing his best to pull Tony away from the monitor for one second to find out _what the hell had happened_. "- _STOP_! Tony _what's going on_ -"

Tony hadn't said a word since he and Steve had spoken – almost a day ago now. He hadn't responded to anyone. Not a single question or request had sparked any kind of life in him, so when his voiced roared out so loudly that it was a wonder the very foundations of the Compound didn't shake, it left them all in various states of shock.

" _SHUT UP_!"

They did.

The vicious typing continued, and slowly – and barely audibly – Tony began to murmur. To himself or to them Steve wasn't sure – but it was something.

"-a Polish deep fishing crater is reporting a that it's picked up people in the water just outside our hundred mile radius-" the words tumbled out of Tony's lips as he typed, and Steve caught barely half of them, "-they said something about a boy – something about-"

That he caught. And so did Rhodey.

Rhodey – with more force than Steve had ever seen him use with his friend – yanked Tony away from the keyboard by his shoulders until he was facing him square on.

"Tony, stop. _Breathe_." Rhodes ordered. And Tony did. Just. When he had taken at least a solid attempt at a decent inhale Rhodey pushed a little further. "What. Is. Happening?"

Tony was shaking – full body spasms that seemed to be threatening his ability to stay upright on his knees – but his voice, for the first time in days, was steady.

"A Polish fishing ship has picked people out of the water, but I can't get more – it's all coming second hand through the Coast Guard – the ship's too old to have digital, they're reporting all through analogue radios so I can't-"

Something lit up behind Tony's eyes – and Steve could have cried. He never thought he'd see that look again.

Before Steve could take a breath of his own – let alone even try to sort through the information being thrown down at them – Tony was up and moving. Rhodey let him, moving away as well and digging forcefully into his pocket for his phone. Dialling wildly.

Tony was across the lab in seconds, and throwing himself head first into the 1930's Ford Roadster that Steve had admired more than once in his times in the lab. There was a _crunch_ a _thud_ and then Tony was _tearing out the entire dashboard_.

Steve – still on his knees – gaped as Tony tore out the speakers and then the goddamn steering wheel for good measure.

What _the hell was –_

Steve's brain finally seemed to catch up with his body, and he realised – just as Rhodey started roaring into his phone – what was going on.

The radio. Tony was building a radio the reach the ship. The ship that had picked up people stranded at sea.

Oh god. Oh _god_.

Please.

"-this is Colonel Rhodes," Rhodey's voice was booming into the phone, fighting over the sound of Tony still tearing apart the vintage car. "I need a radio channel for a Polish fishing crater located roughly 41 degrees, twenty-four minutes by -61 degrees-"

Bruce seemed to have caught up as well because he was flinging himself over to Tony, seizing up the cords and wires the man had torn out of the car and beginning to reorder them. Tony – once he had finally clawed the entire speaker system from the car – joined him on the ground. They were silent, so in tune with one another that they had no need to speak as the moved around each other, attaching and detaching wires left and right.

Steve stood frozen with the rest of the group – Sam, Clint and himself clearly out of their depth when it came to technology, and Natasha and Vision with nothing else to add. The desperate need to move, to help, was overwhelming, but Steve had nothing. He couldn't help with this. This was Tony's world – and he was thriving. Fingers moving like dancers across the machine as it came to life.

Clint was still shaking beside him – his full body quivers from before having, thankfully passed – but enough to notice. Steve moved closer, grasping at the hem of the man's shirt and pulling, just lightly. Straining the fabric across the man's chest.

Bucky used to do this. When Steve was panicking or wild he'd reach out and pull at his shirt. The sudden pressure against his chest had worked wonders – it has brought his heaving chest and aching lungs to the forefront of his attention.

It had tethered him to something real. To Bucky. Even when Bucky was gone – enlisted, or truly _gone_ , Steve had started to pull his own shirt tight around his chest when it was all too much. When the ghosts wouldn't leave him alone.

Clint's eyes shot towards him, but he didn't say anything. Didn't pull away. Slowly the shaking eased, and the breaths he was dragging through his lips actually seemed to make it to his lungs.

No. Steve couldn't build a radio on the fly – or a goddamn _toaster_ – but he could keep them tethered. He _would_ keep them tethered. And when they found Peter and Wanda – because god, please, let it be them, spare them, _please_ – he'd keep them tethered too. Get them through whatever had happened on the Raft – and before in Wanda's case.

No more running. No more fighting. No more _just_ coping on their own. They were a team and _jesus-fucking-Christ_ Steve was going to knock it into their skulls if he had to.

He'd broken this – he knew that – and goddamn it he was going to fix it.

Rhodey – once he had received a response from whomever he was talking to – abandoned his phone and threw himself down beside Bruce and Tony, programming the quickly forming radio with the precision of someone who had been doing so for their entire life. Within only a few minutes the thing was crackling to life. Rhodey seized up the makeshift push-to-talk microphone.

"This is Colonel Rhodes of the United States Air force – does anyone copy?"

Nobody moved. Nobody even breathed.

After the tensest minute of Steve's life the radio crackled _and a voice replied_.

The words were indistinguishable – another language, European going by the sound of it, but not one that Steve could comprehend –

"-F.R.I.D.A.Y translate!" Tony snapped sliding so close to Rhodey as he spoke again that their chests nearly collided with every breath.

"This is Colonel Rhodes of the United States Air force, with whom am I speaking?"

A response crackled from the radio and F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice echoed over it.

"This is Captain Nowak of _The_ _Podróż_ , how can I assist?"

Tony withered against Rhodey, his eyes so wide and bursting with hope that Steve found himself on his knees with him, having dragged Clint down by the hem of his shirt as well.

"You reported that you have taken aboard souls stranded in the water – can you confirm this?" Rhodey replied, eyes drifting to Tony's.

 _Please_.

Steve wasn't sure which god he was begging to – or all of them. Any that was listening.

A crackling reply came, and F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice rang out over it.

"Yes – we discovered two people atop debris in the late evening. A boy and girl."

Tony's eyes darted up and met Steve's.

"Wanda and Peter…" Steve breathed – and truly breathed. Not the suffocating half breaths that he'd been struggling to draw in since he saw Tony's empty chair.

It had to be them. It had to be-

Fear was encroaching on Tony's face again.

"Wanda-" He breathed, confusion crinkling around his eyes. Steve reached out and clasped onto Tony's shoulder with the hand that wasn't still clutching at the hem of Clint's shirt.

"Boy and girl-" Rhodey was already replying, the microphone gripped in both hands. "Are they young?"

The question seemed to dwell in the air for too long.

The reply made the pain-staking weight worth it. A thousand times over.

"Yes."

Tony clasped his hands around both of Rhodey's and pulled the push-to-talk to him.

"Names-" He croaked, eyes so wide and alight that is was a wonder they hadn't come loose from his skull yet. "What are their names!?"

Another crackled response floated across the wire.

"We have not been able to determine their names – both are in quite critical condition due to prolonged exposure, and have not regained consciousness since we took them aboard."

The hope – and pure _joy_ – that had swelled in Steve's chest tightened and ebbed. They were hurt. They were hurt _badly_.

Tony's hands whitened as they clenched more forcefully around Rhodey's.

"The boy – Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes about five-foot-eight, maybe 150 pounds?" Tony breathed, his hands – and Rhodey's by extension – trembling. "And the girl – Caucasian, light brown hair, green eyes and about-"

Tony's eyes flicked to Vision who had sunk down to the floor with them only a few feet away.

"Five-foot, six inches. 126 pounds."

"Five-foot, six inches. 126 pounds." Tony repeated.

Crackle.

"Yes. That seems accurate."

It was them. _It was them_. They were alive. Barely – but alive.

Tony seemed to be on the same wavelength. He pulled away from the microphone.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y _find that ship_."

Rhodey pulled the microphone back up to his lips.

"What is their condition?"

Crackle.

"The boy is in and out of hypothermic shock – and not warming despite our efforts-" FRIDAY's voice floated across the lab.

"That's definitely Peter-" Tony was nodding so quickly that it had to be making him dizzy. "He can't thermo-regulate anymore – once his body temp. drops or rises he can't regulate it." Tony's fingers curled up against his chest, tapping rapidly where the arc reactor used to rest. "F.R.I.D.A.Y make sure the thermo-equipment is all prepped on the jet-" Tony moved and pulled both the microphone and Rhodey's hands back to him. "And the girl?"

Crackl-

"We are-" F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice responded. "-not sure."

Tony's hands fell. Clint's replaced them.

"What the fuck does that mean?" He breathed into the microphone.

Crack-

"She is also suffering from mildly serious hypothermia – though she is responding to warming efforts – but she is unresponsive to stimuli. More so than the boy." F.R.I.D.A.Y translated. "Her pupils are unevenly dilated. A head injury perhaps. We do not have the medical resources aboard to know – or help."

"Over-extension can often appear to have the symptoms of a stroke or aneurism." Vision said as the crackling radio fell silent. "And lifting the Raft – even for a moment – would have been a rather extreme over-extension."

Tony was on his feet faster than Steve had ever seen him move.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y-"

"Co-ordinates are locked, Boss." F.R.I.D.A.Y responded without even needing to hear the question. "The jet is prepped – engine running already running at full capacity – on the heli-deck above."

Tony's bloodshot eyes fell to the rest of them – still huddled together on the floor.

"Anyone not on that jet in the next thirty seconds is being left behind."

Every single one of them was out of the lab within five.

* * *

Please. Please.

Please.

 _PleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePlease_.

God. Please let him be alive. Just let him be alive – Tony would _fix_ anything else. Everything else. Just let him be alive.

Let them both be alive.

Tony would give everything. Anything.

God. He felt like he was right back on that lake – only this time he couldn't leave. He felt been stuck there trying, to force the kid to live, for _days_. Searching. Praying. Begging.

The flight – in retrospect – should have been nothing. A couple of hours compared to the days of waiting. Nothing. But it was everything. Every minute was another minute where the kid might have slipped away. Where Wanda might have slipped away. No.

No.

 _Please_.

"-ony."  
God, please. Don't take him – _don't take him_ –

" _Tony_!"

Tony's eyes snapped open. Steve was eye to eye with him – blue irises boring down at him.

"What?" Tony croaked, and _jesus_ it hurt. His voice seemed to have resigned itself to never working again. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," Steve shook his head softly. "Nothing – everything's fine. We're on track, the ship hasn't called again, so all must be fine on their end to. We're okay."

Steve wasn't close enough to be touching him. Maybe he knew that Tony couldn't handle that right now – couldn't handle another _single_ piece of stimuli in his life if he wanted to remain sane – but he was close enough that if Tony fell he'd be there to catch him. He had been since they boarded the jet. Since Rhodey planted himself in the pilot seat, and Clint the co-pilot, before Tony could say a word. He hadn't. He couldn't have flown a Frisbee straight right now. Maybe that was why Steve had remained close.

Or his legs were shaking as obviously as he feared they were.

"They're not okay." Tony breathed. Steve's head dipped a little closer. "They're not okay – their hurt. Badly. They-"

"They will be." The finality in Steve's tone left no room for argument.

That had never stopped Tony though.

"But, they-"

"They are _alive_ ," Steve breathed. "We can fix anything else. They will be okay. We will be okay."

Tony fell silent again, his hand moving to rest against the scars on his chest. Covering his weak spots – just like he always had. Just like his father had taught him. But the motion offered little comfort – and he didn't have to think to hard to know why.

He knew his real weak spot wasn't the hole the arc had left.

It was the hole the kid had left – and that he couldn't fill.

Clint's voice bombed from the cockpit – and Tony was on the move before he'd finished.

"I see it."

The suit was forming around him within seconds, and the plane's loading doors sliding open above the writhing blue water.

"Tony-"

Steve's voice cut above the screaming wind. Tony turned, half expecting to see reaching out to him, to hold him in place.

He wasn't.

He was right where Tony had left him.

"Go." He nodded, and Tony's brain tripped over the word in shock. "Just-just breathe. Whatever you find, whatever condition they're in, just breathe. We'll get them through it." Steve nodded towards the open bay doors again. "Go – we'll be right behind you."

Tony leapt from the plane.

He barely engaged the thrusters at all as he fell through the open sky to the large fishing ship beneath – he was so close now that the idea of being delayed for even another second was painful. He crashed into the deck with a little too much force – the wood splintering at his feet – and his knees protesting, but he was upright and stepping out of the suit in the next second. All about the deck sailors stared at him in shock.

"I'm here-" He croaked, and then cut off. Jesus could they even understand him – how was he supposed to –

Before his brain could catch up enough to enable F.R.I.D.A.Y through the suit one of the sailors had stepped forward. An older looking man – definitely early sixties, but with a beard to rival the younger men surrounding him.

"The children?" He asked, his accent thick and English broken – but it was enough. More than enough. Tony stepped forward.

" _Yes_ , yes the children," He breathed. "They're here – they're okay?"

The sailor waved him forward and Tony followed without hesitation. The sailor led him across the deck and into the small enclosure at the opposite end, and then down into the ship's hull.

Every step had Tony's heart beating a little harder. A little faster.

It had _sounded_ like them. The Captain had confirmed whoever was here _looked_ like them – but they still had no real confirmation.

They could still be wrong –

No. No.

They couldn't be wrong.

He had to be here.

He had to be.

A few more steps, another long hallway – the ship was swaying but Tony barely noticed as he stumbled along blindly after the older man – a final door.

The man shoved it open with no small amount of effort, the salt water having rusted the joints years ago, and nodded for Tony to step inside.

He did.

It must have usually been the dining room – or whatever the hell a dining room on a ship was called – because it was the only room that they had walked passed big enough to fit the two average sized tables that currently took up almost every inch of space. Only there was no food on them – only two small bodies.

One, covered so fully from head to toe in blankets that only a peak of messy brown hair could be seen peaking over the top, drew Tony's eyes like a beacon. And once they settled, they didn't leave – Tony doubted they ever would again.

" _Peter_."

Tony was across the room in a single stride, yanking back the blankets and chocking at the sight of the kid – pale, cold and unresponsive. But it was his kid.

It was _his_ kid.

" _Peter_."

Tony buckled, throwing his entire body across the table – his arms curling beneath the kid to cradle him to his chest where _no one could take him away_. Not ever. Not ever again. God. Oh. God.

Thick – wrecked – sobs filled the small room, and it took Tony longer than it should have to realize that they were his. That he was sobbing, and rocking, with the kid crushed against his chest – his head pressed in the kid's salt-crusted hair as his knees protested at being perched on the hard wooden table.

Peter was cold. He was definitely _too_ cold – Tony drew him a little closer, though god-knows-how as the kid was already pressed against his chest as hard as Tony dared to hold him, his head cushioned in the cape of Tony's neck – but breathing. His pulse slow, but undeniably there when Tony brought shaking fingers up to rest on the kid's neck.

For a moment Tony just held him. Held him and rocked slowly back and forth as he thanked everything – anything – that might be listening. That might have heard him. That might have listened to him beg and plead in dark of the lab when the others had left. Because the kid was here – he was in Tony's arms, and he was _breathing_. Everything that Tony had begged for, and for the first time in days Tony felt as if he were breathing too. Finally. Finally the air he had been dragging down his protesting throat was making it all the way to his chest. To his brain.

He felt awake – truly awake for the first time since he'd looked down at his phone in that courtroom almost a week ago.

" _Thank-you_ ," Tony breathed into the kid's hair, chocking on another sob as he lifted his head and rested his cheek on the top of the kid's mass of curls. "Jesus – god – I don't – j-just, _thank-you_ -"

Tony squeezed his eyes closed – letting several tears streak along his cheeks – and then opened them again, fighting to force into some semblance of control. And failing.

Across from them Wanda lay on the second table – which had been pushed up alongside Peter's – somehow looking even _worse_ than Peter. She was deathly pale, too, but almost her entire face below her nose was streaked with blood. It pooled in the hollow of her throat, and in the hair by her ears.

Keeping Peter firmly pressed against his chest – his head cradled in the hollow of Tony's neck – Tony pressed further across the table, scraping for Wanda's wrist with shaking hands.

No. God. No.

Don't let her be dead. Don't let her be dead. Don't make him responsible for the death of _every single Maximoff_ –

There. That was a pulse. It was definitely a pulse. Thready – and skipping far too many beats to be considered comforting – but it was there. Tony's shaking hand moved upwards to cup her face. The blood was crusted there, and it rubbed against Tony's hands like sandpaper as he shook her gently.

"Wanda?" He called. She didn't move. " _Wanda_?"

Nothing.

Tony's hand fell back to her wrist – clutching it almost desperately. Counting the beats. Just as he was counting Peter's – had been since he'd pulled the kid to his chest where he could feel each beat pressing into his own skin.

His head fell forward, cheek resting against Peter's curls again, and he pulled the kid a little closer and clasped at Wanda's wrist like a lifeline.

It felt like a lifetime – like hours alone in that room counting each individual beat – but it could only have been minutes. Maybe less.

Tony didn't even realize someone else had entered the room. Didn't notice anything until Wanda's wrist was being pulled away from him.

Tony's head snapped up. His fingers clenched around the wrist he was gripping.

Vision stood across from him – his eyes so focused on Wanda that Tony doubted he saw him at all.

Vision's hands were cradling Wanda's blood stained face with such tenderness – such care – that Tony almost felt the need to look away. As it was he let the wrist he was holding fall as Vision pressed the stone in his forehead to Wanda's.

Her response was instant. Whether it was a conscious one or not, Tony couldn't say, but her fingers curled in where they lay limp by her sides, and the slow breaths that she had been fighting to draw in became long, gasps.

Vision pulled back – just an inch – and Wanda's eyes opened.

Tony looked away then, but not because he felt he should, no, because it _burned his eyes to watch_. The colours whirling in her eyes left him, shaking, breathless and fighting the urge to hurl.

A moment later they were gone. Her eyes were closed again. Her fingers limp at her sides – but her breathing was less laboured. A little colour had returned to her blood-streaked face.

Vision pulled back, rising to his full height with Wanda clasped in his arms, just as Steve bound into the room.

His eyes fell on Tony first – blue irises locking onto Tony for only a second before they moved down to Peter, clutched to his chest, and Wanda cradled in Vision's arms.

"They're alive," Tony croaked. He could feel Peter's heart beating against his own chest. "They're alive."

"Get her to the jet," Steve breathed as he locked eyes with Vision. The man didn't need to be told twice. He was out of the door before Steve had even finished the order. And then Steve was at Tony's side, pressing a hand against the back of Peter's head as he dug the other into the kid's neck – the tension in his shoulders slacking, just slightly, at the pulse Tony knew was beating against his fingers.

"He's cold." Tony said, still fighting to burry the sobs that were breaking free of his chest ever few minutes. He curled a little tighter around the kid's small frame. "He's too cold-"

"-We can fix that," Steve was nodding, to himself or Tony, Tony wasn't sure. "We'll get him to the jet and warmed up in no time – you said the jet was prepped for this, we were ready for this-"

Tony was nodding with Steve's every word, trying to force himself to do what he knew he had to do now. What he thought might just kill him – _but what he had to do_.

Steve was warmer. Steve was warmer than he was – and definitely warmer than the armour.

Steve had to take him. Steve had to take him to the jet. _Tony had to let go_.

"Take him." And god the words almost killed him, but he ground them out through his teeth. "Take him, get him to the jet."

"Tony-" Steve started, but he didn't pull away as Tony released Peter into his grip, he merely gripped the kid as Tony had. Pulling him tight against his chest.

"Go," Tony heaved out. " _Go_ , I'll be right behind you."

Steve lingered for only a second, eyes searching Tony's for _something_. Whatever it was he must have found it because the next second he was up and disappearing through the open door, Peter still cradled against his chest.

Tony pushed himself up onto shaking legs and moved to follow. Just outside the room the old man from earlier was lingering, having clearly shown Steve to the same room.

Tony paused at the sight of him.

"Thank-you." He breathed. The release of saying it to another person – to someone who had actually had a hand in bringing the kid back to him – was almost dizzying. "Anything," he managed to croak. "Anything you need – want – it's yours. Just-just tell me."

The man stared at him for a moment, so long that Tony started to wonder if he had understood him at all, before he answered.

"You just get those kids home." He said, his accent thick, but words soft. His eyes softened as well. "Though, it looks like home has found them."

When Tony was back on the jet, the kid – wrapped almost head-to-toe in specially designed thermal blankets – cradled against his chest once more, he finally let himself process the words. With a hand cradling the base of Peter's head, fingers wrapped in the kid's thick, dark, curls, and the other pressed against his steadily moving chest, Tony final let himself breathe.

Home. The kid was home.

And Tony felt like he finally was as well.

* * *

HE FOUND HIM! Thank god right. The feels were killing me – I don't even want to think how the rest of you were doing.

This fics not over yet though – there are still some hurts to be had…

…Some actions to be held accountable for…

Please do let me know what you thought – this chapter was a doozy for me. It just kinda happened and I don't know how I feel (other than knowing that it hurt) so let me know your thoughts!

I'm thinking of doing another 5+1 fic after this one (at some point) so let me know if that might be something you'd be interested in as well?


	9. The Returned

Wow. Shit. This took…so much longer than I thought it would. I'm so sorry. But without any further waiting, here you are…

* * *

 **CHAPTER 9. THE RETURNED**

* * *

It was the overwhelming, and very urgent, need to pee that finally woke Peter. He had no idea what time it was, but his room was quiet for once so it must have been late. Or very early. Either way, no time to be awake.

Except he really needed to pee.

"Ugh."

His eyes stuck together, as if someone had spilt an entire can of adhesive in the crevices of his eyelids. No matter how hard he tried he just couldn't pry them apart.

Something warm and soft stroked through his hair. Sliding through the curls with aching familiarity.

"Hey, hey," an equally familiar voice murmured from somewhere close to Peter's ear. "You awake?"

Peter forced his eyes open through pure will alone. For a moment everything was a dimly lit blur.

But he knew that voice.

"May?"

She materialized above him - leaning out of the plush chair she was sat in, pushed up to the very edge of the bed Peter was currently occupying, and over Peter. One hand lost in Peter's hair as she continued to stroke long fingers over his scalp.

The motion nearly had him back to sleep before he could process being awake.

"Yeah, honey," she whispered, the hand that wasn't lost to the wilds of his curls moved to rest of Peter's chest. "It's me."

She looked tired- exhausted - but content when she smiled down at him.

Had she been on night shift? Peter couldn't remember, and despite being in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed, it was that that fact that tipped him off that something was not quite right. He always knew her shifts.

His eyes squinted as he tried to bring her more into focus.

"Y'kay?"

His tongue felt too heavy. And cold. Actually the entire of him felt cold. And heavy.

"Yeah," her smile grew, just a little, as she chuckled softly. The fingers in Peter's hair didn't slow. "I'm fine. You're fine. Everyone's fine." Peter - using every bit of force he had at the moment - managed to raise a shaking hand off of the bed. It hovered in the air between them for barely a second before May was wrapping a hand of her own around it. Pulling it closer so she could press a soft kiss to his palm. "Got back to sleep, baby."

Peter wasn't sure if he nodded. He'd meant to.

"M'Kay."

And then it was all gone again.

When he woke again it was in the same bed, and the same strange room. And to the same, now desperate, need to pee.

He was alone now though. May must have ducked out because the chair next to his bed was still there, pushed right up against the med-bed, but it was empty. The bed itself was definitely medically purposed. Peter hadn't really noticed the last time he woke, but as he pushed himself into a sitting position the assorted equipment and wires came into focus. And there were a few of them - some still connected. Most were sticking to his bare chest, and looking up he could see that they were reading his heart-rate, blood pressure and temperate. Actually there were several machines close to the bed that were reading his temperature.

It was there – sat as upright as he could get - in the dark of the plain, cream covered room, that it all hit. All of it.

The attack on the school. The submarine thing. Their escape. Drifting.

Drifting away.

"Wanda." Her name slipped from between his lips before he could even register it.

Oh god. Where was she? If he was here alone then-

"Miss Maximoff is currently in the room just across the hall." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice flooded softly through the dark room and Peter's breath hitched at the sound of it.

"Is she-is she-"

He couldn't bring himself to say it. He just couldn't.

"Miss Maximoff is alive and recovering much like yourself." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice replied and Peter felt the breath that had been caught in his chest finally release. She was alive. He was alive. They'd made it. "She has not yet regained consciousness but her vitals have improved considerably since you were both brought to the Compound early yesterday morning."

Peter let out another deep breath, but somewhere between his chest and his lips it became a sob, tearing its way out of him. Another followed it. And another.

"You seem to be in distress Mr. Parker," was it Peter's fried brain or did the AI sound softer. Warmer. "Would you like me to alert Mr. Stark or Mrs. Parker to your wakeful state?"

Peter raked his hands across his face - scraping away the tears.

"No." He replied instantly. "No. Don't-don't tell anyone. Just-just give me a minute-"

Peter sucked in several heavy breaths through shaking lungs.

"Of course Mr. Parker."

Peter couldn't say when the AI had become comforting. When her voice had started to bring with it a consuming sense of safety. Of reassurance.

"Peter," he whispered as the sobs began to fade and his chest no longer felt as if it might split open at any minute. "C-could you call me Peter?"

There was a brief pause.

"Of course, Peter."

Peter let out another shaking breath.

"W-hat day is it?" He cast his eyes around the room. It was dark, but there were peaks of light sliding beneath the blinds that covered the wall of windows to his right. The room itself was fairly plain. Just his bed, various medical equipment and a few seats spread through the room, along with a sofa that Peter was sure was worth more than anything he owned.

Definitely in the Compound.

"It is Friday, Peter." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice rung out again – still soft. "Friday the 16th of March, 2018." She added. "The time is 7:14am – Eastern Standard Time – and we are currently in the Avengers facility known as 'The Avengers Compound' in Upstate New York-"

The words started to fold together, and with them other facts that Peter had forgotten. Or simply misplaced. He imagined he'd never be free of the image of his best friend at the barrel end of a pistol –

"Ned?" His name tore out of Peter's throat. " _Ned_?!" He scrambled further up, the wires attached to his chest pulling at an odd angle. The once steady beeping of a nearby machine hit overdrive. "My friend – at school – there was an attack-" Oh god. Oh _god_ , what – "There was an attack – did he – is he-"

F.R.I.D.A.Y's response was instant.

"Mr. Leeds received only minor injuries during the attack and is currently at his home in Queens, New York by order of Mr. Stark who threatened – and I quote – to 're-route your every goddamn collage application to _Chucky Cheese_ if you don't stop calling! _I_ will call _you_ when he is awake and ready to see people, until then get some damn rest kid'."

As quickly as the sobs had come, chest-quivering rounds of hysterics took their place. At the idea of Ned harassing the _Avengers_ for information. At Tony's reply. At the knowledge that they were safe. They were safe. It was really over –

"He's okay." Peter murmured, reassuring himself more than seeking confirmation, but then another thought hit him. And panic a moment later. "MJ – shit – I don't– I didn't-"

He hadn't seen her. He hadn't seen her at all. She'd been in Chem. – not close to the doors but the soldiers had stormed the school so quickly that they could have been anywhere by that point –

Again F.R.I.D.A.Y's response was so quick it cut over the thoughts that were threatening to suffocate him.  
"There were no serious injuries sustained by any student or faculty member during the attack at Midtown School of Science and Technology – yourself and Mr. Leeds being the only two with mild injuries to speak of."

Oh. Okay.

"Okay." The word slipped through his lips as he fought to process it. "Okay. Okay." They were fine. Everyone was fine. Wanda was going to be fine.

Somehow – despite the crippling fear that he had lost _everything_ , which had consumed him during those days in the cell – everything had worked out.

Everyone was safe.

Everyone was home.

"Would you like me to call Mr. Stark now?" F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice murmured.  
"No." Peter said again. His cheeks were wet. Why were his cheeks wet? He swiped his hands across them again. When had he started crying? "No. I'm alright. Really. I just-I just need-" It was all a little bit much, too much information all at once. He felt like he'd been living in a constant state of adrenaline and fear for weeks, and now it was just all over. The whiplash of it all was crashing down on him. He meant to say something along those lines – to try and describe the consuming feeling that the floor had been ripped out from beneath him and then restored in such quick succession that his feet still felt like jelly, but what ended up coming out was – "I need to pee." And he did. So badly. It was easier to focus on that. He could fix that. "I need to pee really badly."

"There is a restroom through the door in the left corner of your room."

Peter started to slide towards the edge of the bed, but was stopped by the tugging wires attached to his chest.

He ran a hand over them. "C-can I remove these?"

F.R.I.D.A.Y's response was hesitant, but no less sure when it did come.

"They are not vital to your recuperation," she said, and Peter imaged that was the only reason she had agreed. Tony was not usually lenient when it came to him leaving the med-bay without a personal entourage – despite the hypocrite having done so himself on multiple occasions much to Peter's discomfort and Rhodey's fury. "Yes. You may remove them."

So Peter did. F.R.I.D.A.Y switched off each machine as Peter pulled the wires away, and then he was moving his feet towards the edge of the bed and stepping off.

And then promptly falling onto his face.

" _Don't_ call Mr. Stark!" Peter hissed from the floor, already sensing the AI's intention. "I'm fine, I just- I just need a minute."

Apparently his legs feeling like jelly was not just a metaphor for his life. It was, as it turned out, as he tried to force them under himself again, very apt.

Peter wasn't sure if F.R.I.D.A.Y's silence meant that she had listened, or that she had already ratted him out and just didn't see the need to tell him that, but either way she said nothing as Peter forced his way back to his feet. He moved slower this time, grasping onto the bed, and the chair next to the bed, as he maneuvered his way towards the bathroom door. He made it without any other spills, or Tony bursting in, which was a plus. And after having emptied his impossibly full bladder he felt a little better. A little more solid.

No less likely to fall onto his face though he realized when a wrong step nearly had him toppling through the bathroom door on his way out. He managed to catch himself on the doorframe, just, and then took a minute to steady himself there.

He really wasn't sure what to do now. He didn't want to go back to the bed. No. He'd spent days, alone, on the bed in his cell, and then days on the small piece of debris in the middle of the ocean. No. He wanted to move, to walk – to go outside.

Yeah. He wanted to go outside.

Again, much easier said then done. He made it to the door of his room without any spills. And then again to the end of the hall just beyond his door. He stopped in the archway of the hallway, leaning on it more than he wanted to admit, and wrapping his hands around his bare chest. He wished that he'd thought to bring a blanket, or a jacket, but going back for one now seemed like a lot of effort.

"Peter, perhaps it would be best if you went back to your room?" F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice called from above him. It was a soft voice though, not commanding or curt like he had heard her with some of the other Avengers. Not caught constantly between amused and frustrated as she always seemed to be with Tony. "You are not yet recovered, your body temperature is still unstable and the after affects of severe dehydration are likely to worsen with physical activity."

"I'm not going for a run." Peter argued, but even as he did his eyes slipped close. Just for a minute.

"You are tired and should therefore rest." Came her frustratingly logical response.

"I just-" he fought for a second for words, but they failed him, and he ended up with, "I just need to go outside."

He expected her to disagree, to send him back – to call his aunt or Tony, but she did not.

Her silence this time was the longest so far.

"There is a door to the back lawn down the stairs to your left, midway along the corridor directly to your right at the bottom of the steps."

Peter forced his eyes back open.

"Thanks F.R.I.D.A.Y."

This time her reply was instant.

"You may count on me always, Peter."

Peter didn't have a chance to think on that too much before voices were flooding up the hall. He pulled back behind the archway. Just enough so than anyone walking by on the other side would likely miss him. He wasn't sure why – it wasn't as if he was doing anything wrong, per say, but he had a feeling that neither his aunt nor Tony would be as understanding as F.R.I.D.A.Y if he quite suddenly voiced an unexplainable need to be outside. To lie on the grass, outside – with no water or cells in sight.

Oh. Maybe it wasn't so unexplainable.

The voices were getting louder.

"-really, I should get back to him."

May. That was May. Even from his place Peter could smell the soft hints of her perfume. The smell had almost driven him insane when he'd first been bitten. It was everywhere in the apartment – so strong in places that it had given him a headache. Now it smelt like home. Like safety.

"-kid's out like a light, and well out of risk of any set backs." _That_ was Happy. What was Happy doing here? He never usually hung out around the Compound, preferring to stick closer to the city. "You know that, Tony's had almost the entire medical staff on his payroll look at the kid and had them tell him the same thing. He's just tired – though not nearly as much as you at this point. Seriously. You're giving the kid a run for his money when it comes to the bags under you eyes, a few more days and you'll be reaching _Tony_ level-"

Peter risked a glance out from behind the arch and spotted the pair of them standing just down the next hallway. Happy had one hand in his pocket, but the other was resting lightly on May's arm – and it looked like she needed it. Even at a glance Peter could see the exhaustion set in every inch of her. The way her arms hung long at her sides, and her wet hair was dripping gently onto her clothes. She hated that.

A stab of guilt hit Peter faster and harder than he was prepared for and he pulled himself back behind the arch, leaning against it heavily.

"-I know." May was saying. "I do, it's just-I just got him back," the words were barely a whisper, but Peter heard them as if she's shouted them. Each one cut deeper than the last. God, what had he put her through? "The idea of not having him close-"

"-I'm not suggesting going home," Happy cut her off. "Just to get some food – downstairs there's a huge spread at the moment, apparently the Cap stress bakes, though no one's really surprised about that – and then get some sleep _in a real bed_. The room right next to his is free, and I'm sure F.R.I.D.A.Y will keep you updated on his every move – right F.R.I.D.A.Y?"

Peter felt his gut clench.

"Absolutely Mrs. Parker," F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice replied. "I will not hesitate to inform you as soon as he is in need."

May let out a sigh that sounded borderline painful.

"Alright," Peter could imagine her rubbing the spot between her eyes as she said it, as she so often did when she was stress or exhausted. "Alright – food and sleep. Lead the way."

Peter imaged Happy did, as a moment later he heard footsteps again, though this time they were heading back the way they came – away from Peter.

"Thanks for covering, F.R.I.D.A.Y." Peter whispered, still leaning heavily against the archway.

"I merely spoke the truth," F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice washed down on him. "As soon as you are in need of her, I will contact her."

Peter nodded.

"Is she-is she okay?"

There was hesitation again before F.R.I.D.A.Y replied.

"Your disappearance, and subsequent disappearance at sea, has caused a degree of stress, for both Mrs. Parker and the occupants of the Compound." She said, finally, but carefully, as if choosing each word with care. "But I have no doubt that your return, and rehabilitation, will alleviate that stress."

"How stressed?" Peter pushed, "I mean, was everyone okay?"

The hesitation was longer this time.

"Mrs. Parker did not come to the Compound until after you were returned, and therefore I cannot report on her condition during your disappearance, save for the phone calls she shared with Mr. Stark."

"And Mr. Stark?" Peter pressed, feeling as if there was something she was trying very hard not to tell him. "Was he okay-is he okay?"

The hesitation after he finished talking was longer than any so far – so long that Peter thought perhaps she might not answer him. Tony was, after all, her creator, and it was a bit of a personal question. It would make sense that she would not divulge such information easily.

Peter pulled himself away from the archway with no small degree of difficulty and began to make his way to the stairs as F.R.I.D.A.Y had instructed when she finally answered.

"Mr. Stark was distressed at your loss." She replied, the statement leaving much to be desired in regards to detail. "As were the others – I therefore think it the best course of action that you take measures to ensure that such events do not reoccur."

A hysterical laugh broke free of Peter's chest before he could stop it.

"Yeah – don't worry. It's not an experience I'd like to repeat either."

Peter reached the bottom of the staircase and started forward.

"To the right, if you please, Peter." F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice called down to him.

"-but I can see a door from there-" Peter said, moving towards the patio door just ahead.

"To the right, please, Peter." F.R.I.D.A.Y repeated.

Glanced upwards for a moment – a habit he'd never really gotten out of despite how it made Tony chuckle every time he saw – but didn't argue. The AI was currently letting him further than May or Tony ever would, so he thought it best not to push his luck.

"Alright." He murmured, moving down the hall to his right. It didn't stretch very far. Only a few doors littered each side before he was moving out into a large open area, where plush sofas surrounded what looked like a solid marble coffee table. The room was flooded with light from the windows that took up every inch of wall, and just as F.R.I.D.A.Y had said there was a door to the back lawn right on the other side.

What F.R.I.D.A.Y had not mentioned was that Tony was currently sprawled across the couches that separated Peter from that door.

She'd lead Peter right to him. Traitor.

Peter took a hesitant step forward, not sure whether to make a break for the door and hope that he didn't wake Tony, or to stop for him.

The man looked as awful as Peter felt.

Bruise like bags ringed both of his eyes. He was sprawled across the couch like he he'd merely sat down for a moment and then released that he couldn't stay upright a second longer and promptly keeled over – his feet still firmly on the floor. It didn't look comfortable. Not even to Peter, who had slept upside down on his roof once just to prove to Ned that he could. Peter should wake him. He really should. It couldn't be good for his back to sleep like that – but also, he still really wanted to go outside. _Needed_ to go outside. Just for a moment, just to prove to himself that he could. That he was finally free.

And there was no way Tony would let him.

In the end Peter never had to make a choice, as he stood in the archway for so long, torn between his mentor and the door just beyond him, that his legs decided they were done walking for the day and promptly buckled. He hit the small table beside him on the way to the floor – spilling the knick-knacks scattered along it to the ground. They thundered across the tiles, echoing with every bounce.

Tony shot up off the couch. His eyes snapped to Peter a second later, and he was off the couch before they had even had time to focus.

" _Peter_!"

Peter, who was halfway back to his feet already, through pure force, was hauled up the rest of the way by shaking hands. They ran over him, skimming along his shoulders, coming to rest on his upper arms. Keeping him upright.

Tony's dark eyes bore into him.

" _Kid_? What's wrong?" Those eyes racked over every inch of him, one hand pulling away to hover in the air between them, shaking. It was the shaking hand that did it. Peter had been okay. He _was_ okay – but that hand was shaking. That steady, sure, hand that had caught him more times than he could count, was finally shaking.

And so was Peter.

Both of Tony's hands clasped back around his arms as Peter swayed.

"What are you _doing_ down here? Do you need something? Were you-" The words trickled from between Tony's lips so quickly that even Peter had to fight to keep up. Brown eyes were racking over him again, terror in every line of them. And there were lines. Tony joked everyday that Peter scared years of his life – but looking at the older man now Peter was honestly worried that he _had_. He looked exhausted, and _weak_. Pale. Peter felt the sudden need to reach out and keep him upright despite his own knees threatening to give way on him.

"I'm okay." Peter forced through his teeth. "Really-" He took a breath, a much-needed one if the instant relief in his chest was any indication, and made himself stand straighter. Steadier.

He was okay. He _was_ okay.

Tony was evidently not so easily convinced. Those hands fluttered again, one coming to rest against his chest. It remained there, a steady warmth settled right over his heart that Peter couldn't help but lean into. Lean into and breathe again. It was easier this time, with that light pressure against his chest – keeping him grounded.

Peter's eyes drifted open when Tony spoke again – wait, when had they closed?

"F.R.I.D.A.Y I told you to alert me when he woke up!"

F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice filtered down from above them.

"He is awake – and you have now been alerted to that fact."

Tony shot a murderous glance at the ceiling.

"You-don't think that I wont re-code you, you-" Tony trailed of, his frustrated murmurs imaginative but lacking any real heat. His hands curled more firmly around Peter – pulling him back towards the stairs he had just descended. "What are you doing down here – come on-"

Using more effort than it really should have taken Peter pulled Tony to a stop before he could move more than a few steps.

"No."

Tony rounded back on him – refusing to let go of for even a second.

" _No_?"

"No." Peter said again, taking his time to take a breath. Now that he had he realized just how much he needed to – and how much it felt like he hadn't over the last, _god_ , _how long had he been gone_? "I want to go outside."

Tony's eyes widened to the point that Peter worried they might fall right out of his skull.

"You want to _what_?" Tony threw a wild glance outside, taking in the frost ridden grass just beyond. "Kid, it's the middle of March – it _ain't_ warm out there." Those hands that were pressed again Peter's arm and chest tightened, just a little. "We just got your body temperature above Popsicle level, okay, you're not going to _sit outside-_ "

Tony attempted to pull him another step further, but Peter dug his heels in. Literally.

"Please." The word fell out while he was trying to find a way to explain – to make Tony understand that he _needed_ this. He needed it. Just for a minute. Just one minute – "I don't want to lay down anymore. I don't- I don't-"

The words caught in his throat, and so did the next, forced breath, and for a second he was choking – and then those hands were pressing down on him again. One still pressed fast against his chest, and the other bracing against his back.

Holding him together.

"Hey," Tony was leant in close, eyes locked onto Peter's forcefully that Peter couldn't have looked away even if he had wanted to. "Hey, kid, look at me. You're okay. Everything's okay-"

F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice wafted over them again.

"Peter has been in and out of distress since he woke twelve minutes ago."

It was Peter's turn to shoot a murderous glance at the ceiling. He doubted his had anywhere near the heat Tony's had held if his shaky legs were anything to go off. "And has expressed several times that he would like to go outside."

"I don't want to stay in the room-" Peter rushed. He didn't need F.R.I.D.A.Y freaking the older man out enough to call the medical team down to them. He was okay. He _was okay_. "I don't want to be stuck there-"

"Okay," Tony nodded, those hands at his chest and back still holding firm. Peter heaved in another breath – ready to argue again – before Tony's words started to really settle in. "Okay. Outside." Tony murmured, steering them quite suddenly in the other direction. It took Peter's brain a full minute to realize what was happening – even as Tony was still speaking. "Outside in at the crack of dawn in March – F.R.I.D.A.Y have someone bring him a jumper, and blankets, lots of blankets. And a space heater-"

Tony reached around him and shoved the glass door open – showering them both in a waft of cool air.

"Thank-you."

God, he was nearly crying. As they stepped out into the small garden, Tony keeping a hand tightly closed over Peter's arm, Peter fought back tears. They were outside, on the ground.

He was free.

 _He was free_.

"I got you, kid." Tony murmured as they maneuvered their way over to a small grassy patched that had been spared the worst of the icy condensation curtsey of the overhanging roof above. Moving through the courtyard to get there though left them fully exposed to the icy winds that cut through with a viciousness. Tony shivered, " _Jesus_ – okay, over here-" Peter felt nothing.

When they reached the small patch of clear grass Tony pulled them both down, keeping a hand on Peter every second until they were both sat on the ground – Peter with his legs folded in on himself, and Tony leaning into him. As soon as they were down Tony pulled away – and for a terrifying second Peter thought he might leave him there, in the cold, alone – but not sooner had the man's hands left him then they were back again, wrapping his suit jacket tightly around Peter.

Peter struggled as Tony tucked the jacket into Peter's sides, keeping it as close to him as possible. "You don't need to-" The hard look Tony shot him silenced Peter before he could even get the words out.

"Keep it on or we're going back inside. As it is your Aunt's going to kill me if she finds out about this." Tony grumbled, forcing Peter's arms the rest of the way through each sleeve. "How are you feeling?"

Peter moved to give a half-shrug, but averted last minute. God. Everything hurt.

"Okay."

The jacket was wrapped tightly around him, but Tony didn't move his hands from Peter's shoulders. Instead he used them as an anchor to keep him in place as Tony stared down at him.

"Want to try that again?"

The words weren't hard – not the clipped, strained words that usually flowed freely from Tony's lips whenever Peter got himself in a dicey situation. No. They were soft. Real.

The mask of calm that Peter has plastered on his face from the moment he woke up slipped, just a little.

"Just-just off." Peter murmured, fiddling with the sleeves of Tony's jacket before he remembered how much the quickly fraying fabric was probably worth and crunching his hands into fists to keep from damaging it further. "I don't know, I just-" he struggled. Tony didn't push. Just watched as he fought for words, a solid warmth at Peter's side. Eventually he gave up trying to find the words to describe the knot in his chest that just wouldn't ease. "Is Wanda really okay?"

Tony took the change of topic without argument, and Peter felt like crying with relief.

"She was in a bit of a bad way when we found her – just like you – but she's getting better-"

Peter nodded.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y said she hasn't woken up yet?"

Tony hesitated.

"No. Not yet."

That knot in Peter's chest tightened.

"Is that bad?"

Tony regarded him evenly. "We really don't know." He admitted, stretching his legs out and wrapping his arms around his knees. "Wanda's a bit of an enigma." He went on, and Peter found himself leaning closer. "What she did – lifting the Raft – we didn't know that she could do that, so we're really not sure what the repercussions of it will be." Peter nodded slowly. "But she's got the best doctors money can buy – and Vision, who arguably knows more about her powers than anyone could – so she'll be just fine. I promise. You just worry about yourself for a while."

They fell into silence for a moment – it stretched until Peter couldn't handle it anymore.

"What happened?" He murmured.

Tony turned towards him. "What do you mean?"  
"All of it?" Peter breathed, a cloud of steam stemming from his lips. "What happened with school? The boat-thingy? How did you find us? How did we get here-"

Tony's hands were back on his shoulders.

"Okay, okay, take a breath." Wasn't he? Oh. His lungs were burning – maybe he wasn't. Tony's fingers relaxed their death grip on his shoulders, just a little, as Peter hauled in a shaky breath. "That's it. Nice and easy." Peter nodded, too tired and strung out to really be embarrassed at the tears that slid their way silently down his cheeks and over his chin. Tony whipped them away with deft fingers, saying nothing. Peter ached to wrap his arms around the man. "Nothing happened with the school – it's still under investigation, but with Ross still in position that won't be going anywhere." Tony started once Peter was somewhat back in control of himself, still wiping away the stray tears that fell across Peter's cheeks without comment. "The Raft is gone. Sunk. You don't have to worry about it anymore. A fishing boat picked you up a couple of days ago now – and they contacted the coast guard whose transmission was one of many I was tapped into, so we were able to get a location on the boat and pick you up. Brought you straight back here, where you have been since." The hand that was still perched on one of Peter's shoulders – the other still gently swiping away the tears on his cheeks – squeezed, just slightly. Peter's eyes drifted up to meet Tony's. "It's all over." Tony murmured again, his eyes never straying from Peter's. "It's all over."

Peter lost the battle for the last piece of his self-control and flung himself towards Tony. Tony caught him without hesitation, wrapping his arms so tightly around Peter that if he were anyone else it would have left bruises. The pressure against his chest, all along his back, as Tony clutched him against his own chest was all that kept him from completely breaking. That bruising pressure keeping him together. " _It's all over_." Tony murmured, his lips brushing against Peter's hair as he rested his cheek atop Peter's head where it was cradled in the arch of Tony's neck. Peter's fingers twisted in Tony's shirt as he clung to him, no doubt ruining the hundred-dollar fabric.

They stayed like that for sometime. Peter cradled in Tony's arms as he wept. He tried to stifle the sobs, to pull himself together, but every attempt left him shaking and gasping worse than before. Somewhere in the back of his mind Peter knew that as soon as it was over he'd be horrified. He'd spent nearly a year now fighting to prove himself to this man, to prove he was ready, that he wasn't a child, and here he was falling to pieces in his arms, smearing snot, tears and god knows what else across his shirt. But Tony wouldn't let go. Even in the off moments where Peter managed to pull himself half together Tony refused to let him pull away, not that his attempts had any real heart. Those arms were all that were holding him together – or what was left of him.

Somewhere behind them a quiet _whoosh_ announced the glass door to the Compound opening, and footsteps crunched across the icy ground. Peter didn't open his eyes. Didn't pull away. He was too tired. It was all just a little _too much_.

"Someone put in an order for a cotton-blend overload?"

Clint's voice washed over the pair of them. Peter felt Tony's head shift, just slightly, where it was still rested against his hair.

"Okay, firstly, I am offended that you think anything I own is a _cotton blend_. Please. It's pure cotton or wool. No _blends-_ " Tony's voice brushed over Peter's head, the quip more soothing than it really should have been. It was just like normal. Everything was just like normal. Almost. "And secondly, yes, give em'."

The icy grass next to Peter gave of a soft crunch.

"And the space heater?"

Steve's voice was soft – like always. Peter had been surprised, when they'd first met, by Steve's soft voice. He didn't really know why but he'd always imagined Steve having a booming voice – a voice you could hear across battlefields, across crowds or any injustice. He always had in the movies. Actors had roared and screamed their way through dozens of films about him.

But Steve was soft. His voice was soft. The hand that moved to rest on Peter's arm, just below where Tony's arm was wrapped around his shoulder, was soft. And Peter couldn't imagine him any other way now. Everything else was _wrong_. Every movie and every legend felt cheap, felt like they'd spent too long looking at Captain America and not Steve Rogers. Because they were different. They were. Captain America the face on his breakfast cereal. The grainy image on a PSA that Tony had dubbed, remixed, and played on repeat on every screen in the compound for days after the team had retuned. He was what the people made him.

Steve was…not.

Steve was the far too big body to be sliding down, and hunching over, as he was where Tony and Peter were huddled together. But he did.

He was the soft voice you heard across battlefields because you were _looking_ for it.

Tony nodded again over Peter's head. Through it quickly turned into a whole body shudder as his jacketless torso finally began to rebel against the icy winds that were pelting against his back.

"Space heater," Tony nodded. "For him-" Peter felt Tony's head come to rest against his hair again, his breaths coming in pants now as the cold started to get to him more and more. Peter tried to turn, to start to inch of the jacket Tony had wrapped around him, but the older man's arms were like chains and didn't give him even an inch to move. Someone above them, however, did. Tony let out a disgruntled huff, and a second later something was wrapped tightly around the both of them. Several something's, cocooning them together like some kind of weird slug, or "-Clint, what no – no, _we are not a_ _burrito-_ "

Tony's grouching was like a soothing balm at the back of Peter's mind – which had begun to wonder again. God he was tired. Tired and just…tired, but in a different way. Not in the _my bones will never hold my weight again_ kind of way, that was the first tired – the familiar tired – but in the _I'm a little worried that literally anything beyond the nest of blankets I'm correctly swaddled in might just break me_ kind of way. He'd known the feeling before – after Ben. When the world had been too much, and everything had felt like it was caving in on him. When even leaving the apartment had taken hours of mental prep – and several ditched attempts – because everything, _everything_ , out there was there to _break him_ and –

"How you doing, kid?"

Steve's voice filtered through the panic that was settling over him. Gentle hands, as they fiddled with the blankets wrapped around him, adjusting them so they rested just about his chin, brought him back to the icy compound courtyard.

Peter gave a small shrug, despite that it was lost in the masses of blankets.

Steve seemed to feel it.

He had settled on Peter's right side, as Tony was still stuck to his left like an octopus thanks to Clint's burrito wrapping skills, his legs curled beneath him as he slid closer to lean up against Peter's shoulder.

Oh _god_. He was a space heater. _Jesus_. That had to be not right. No one could run that hot – or maybe Tony had been onto something, maybe Peter really was that cold. Whatever the reason Peter found himself falling almost limp against Steve's side – and yeah, that, _that_ , he was definitely going to be embarrassed about later – but Steve didn't pull away. The opposite. He turned just slightly so that Peter was leant up against his chest, and he could wrap a secure arm around both Peter _and_ Tony. Keeping them both upright despite Peter's attempts to drag them down.

"That's more than fair, you've had a hell of a week."

Peter felt the words rumble in Steve's chest when were his frozen cheek was pressed up against it.

Peter nodded.

"Just breathe – you're okay." Tony's voice murmured from above his head, his face still resting against the top of Peter's head – probably mere inches from Steve's now, but he didn't pull away. "We've got you."

Peter nodded again, trying to keep himself together by pure will despite that those words were trying to break him.

But they were the kind of words that broke you so that you could rebuild on them – and build something better. Because if building block number one was _we've got you_ Peter knew he'd never fall, and every step from that one suddenly seemed much less daunting. Every stone from that first seemed more solid.

Peter's eyes drooped.

 _We've got you_.

He was okay.

 _We've got you_.

His friends were okay.

 _We've got you_.

He was free

 _We've got you_.

Peter's heavy eyelids were suddenly too much.

 _We've got you_.

They slid closed and, between one moment and the next, Peter slipped into the first peaceful sleep he'd had in months.

 _We've got you_.

* * *

Tony's eyes met Steve's over Peter's head as the kid finally drifted off. As they did the hand that had been splayed over Tony's back, keeping both him and the kid upright, curled in a fist around the blanket covering them both – knuckles digging, just slightly into the muscles on Tony's back. A solid pressure. A solid pressure keeping him in the courtyard. Keeping him with Steve and Peter.

Keeping him from _freaking the fuck out_.

Those too blue eyes – streaked with flecks of gold as the sun continued to rise over upstate New York beyond them – never wavered from Tony's. And in them he saw his own words reflected back at him.

 _You're okay_. _We've got you_.

And he believed them.

* * *

I just don't know about this chapter. It took me so long to write because I was never happy with it. I still don't know if I am.

Let me know – what do you think? Was it right?

Ugh. I am just a ball of indecision, but it wasn't getting any better so I've decided to pop it up for your review.

Also…Endgame. Fuck. Just. No.

So there is only one chapter left of this little story (that became a really fecking long story)…the Epilogue. And I promise you this, it will be heart-warming, real and above all…

Satisfying.

Am. So. Excited. To. Write. It.

Feel free to guess why in the comments…

For all of you who have stuck with me this far, thank-you. I could never have asked for the kind of support you've given me, and I am still shocked by it daily. You make all of the writer's stress, and writer's block, worth it. Every damn minute.

So until we see each other for the final chapter, adieu.


	10. Epilogue

And here we go. One last time.

* * *

 **EPILOGUE**

* * *

"Stark."

Ross stood in the doorway to his office, a gawking intern beside him holding a clipboard whose contents were slowly slipping to the ground while the kid gaped, staring down at where Tony sat across from his desk. Ross's eyes were wide, his jaw set, but the skin around his noise was still slightly swollen. The nose itself a little crooked.

Tony didn't even try to hide the smirk that crinkled his lips.

"I wasn't aware we had a meeting on the books." Ross said, recovering enough to step inside the office. The intern Ross must have been speaking to until he reached the doorway continued to gape from just behind the man until Ross promptly slammed the door in the poor kid's face.

Tony turned back to the desk in front of him, turning his back to Ross where he was still frozen just inside the door.

"We don't." Tony said, watching the Newton Cradle resting on the desk in front of him to the floor. Any other day it would have made him nauseous, but today he found it oddly soothing. One movement leading to the next. Action and re-action. "This is more of a tête-à-tête sort of thing."

Ross finally recovered, sauntering around Tony to stop behind his desk. He didn't sit though. Instead he reached across to a cardboard box neatly resting on the far edge. It was open already, the mailing tape hanging loose from the sides. Ross reached in and pulled out a dark, curved bottle. Scotch. He waved the bottle in Tony's direction.

"In that case you won't mind...?" He asked with a shrug. The sneer Tony had come to associate with his face was slowly growing, though there was a small amount of satisfaction in the fact that it looked more than a little painful now. Ross's swollen skin pulling too tight in a few too many places.

Ross ran a finger over the pristine label. "I wouldn't normally accept this kind of thing – it was a gift from some Venezuelan dignitary or another – but it is my one vice, said so in a Military gazette once hoping someone might take note."

"I remember," Tony said. Ross's eyes darted to him. "September, twenty-fifteen edition of the jarhead gazette." Ross's brows rose. "I read it."

He waved the bottle in Tony's direction again. An offering this time. Tony shook his head. Ross shrugged again, cutting through the wax around the bottle with a practiced twirl of a letter opener. "1926 Macallan. This bottle alone will set you back-"

"-Fifty-five thousand." Tony cut across him dryly. "Or thereabouts."

Ross let out a huff as he maneuvered the cork out of the head of the bottle. "The Venezuelans have more money then they know what to do with."

"I'm sure the there people disagree."

Ross poured himself a generous glass of the scotch and slid into his chair, reclining easily. Swirling his scotch in slow, even movements that somehow synced with the Newton's cradle.

"You seem awfully chipper for a man with seven billion dollars littered across the floor of the pacific." Tony observed, watching Ross dip his face towards the glass and take in a long breath. Tony found himself wondering if the surgeons had really been able to save his sense of smell after the damage and surgery, or if the act of smelling the scotch was just for show.

Ross's eyes snapped from the glass to Tony's.

"Well, that's just the danger of building on the water." Ross's eyebrow twitched as he spoke, and the hand holding his glass moved rest on the arm of his. His face was solemn, but his eyes were dancing.

He was enjoying this.

"The ocean can be a cruel mother. Hurricanes are not uncommon."

A barking laugh broke free of Tony's chest before he could even begin to swallow it.

"Hurricanes." Tony nodded. "Right." His teeth ground together painfully. "And fortunately for you not a soul left alive that would contradict you." Tony said. Ross's smirk grew. Just a little. Just enough. "You're going to get away with it. All of it. Human smuggling. Kidnapping. Murder," He said. "-And it was murder. They dragged up the bodies of the other gifted people you had bought. Dead, all of them, but there was no water in their lungs. They'd been long dead before the thing sunk." Tony said, more thinking out loud than accusing. There was no need for accusation. Not anymore.

Ross gave a delicate shrug, raising his glass to his lips and taking a small sip.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." He said, pulling his most contrite face. It didn't sit well on him. It looked painful – and not just because it clearly pulled at the tender tissue around his nose. "It was a tragedy – for sure. And unfortunately many bodies will never be recovered." Those eyes darkened. "As I said, the ocean is unforgiving."

Tony didn't grace the lie with a response.

Ross pulled away from the desk, reclining against his plush chair and staring over the expanse of the mahogany desk at Tony.

"Why are we at odds, Stark?" He asked without warning. That same barking laugh nearly broke free of Tony's chest again – but it died somewhere between his chest and his lips, leaving him cold and empty on the inside. "We want the same thing, really," Ross went on, ignorant of the sudden urge that almost had Tony leaping across the desk and wrapping his fingers around Ross's throat.

The urge died as quickly as it had come when Ross took another small sip of the scotch.

"And what is that?" Tony found himself asking.

Ross's eyes met his squarely. "Security." He answered, his tone suggesting that he was astonished Tony hadn't guessed the answer himself. "Isn't that what this is all about? What Iron Man was designed to do?" He challenged, eyes falling to the glowing mass beneath Tony's shirt. "To protect America, and its interests."

Ross moved to take another small sip.

"No."

The glass froze against his lips.

"No?" He asked, brows rising over the rim of his glass.

"No." Tony said again, with a small shrug. "Do I look like I'm wearing a spangly outfit with a matching, and honestly laughably small, shield?" Tony shot back when Ross didn't respond. "I don't give a fuck about America." He muttered, honestly. And he was being honest. They were _so far_ past petty international grievances, not with the swirling mass of darkness and unknown threats looming over their heads day and night. "And I actively disapprove of its interests because, just like _your_ interests, they are at best self-serving, and at worst actively detrimental to the rest of the world." Tony plowed on when Ross opened his mouth – he ground it closed whilst Tony spoke and didn't opening it again despite Tony's pause. Tony's hands wound together in his lap, one leg moving over the other as he sunk back into his chair in thought. "Iron Man was an acceptance of responsibility. Of my failures." He murmured, and despite his all-consuming loathing of the man he was saying it to, the words felt good to say. To admit. "And then it was my responsibility." He went on, mind drifting, and then landing on the one thing it had been continually landing on over the last few days. Peter. "Because when the people who can do something don't, when the bad things happen, they happen because of them." The words slipped through his lips like a prayer that sucked all of the air out of his lungs.

Peter was okay. He was. He'd been back at the Compound, walking and talking, for almost a week now. His temperature was _finally_ stable, and Tony already had plans and tech in place to make sure it stayed that way. Even Wanda was doing better. She'd only woken the night before, and still had a ways to go in terms of recovery, but she was speaking, and moving. She knew who they were and where she was. What had happened.

Yeah. The kids were alright.

Tony was not. Not yet.

Even now, almost a week later, he was still shaking. His breath was still catching in his chest. He'd go from hot to freezing to _burning_ over and over again. He just couldn't _focus_. In the back of his head he knew exactly what was happening to him. Delayed shock. He knew it was all just chemicals in his brain sluggishly responding to what had happened.

To what had _almost_ happened.

He knew all of that, knew all of the science behind it, but it didn't stop him from waking up in the middle of the night colder than he'd ever been in his life. Didn't keep him from sliding away from Pepper in the bed and creeping down the hall. From inching the door to the kid's room open, just a touch, so that he could lean inside and watch the tangled mass of blankets for a moment. Watch the blankets rustle and move with the kid – because even in sleep Peter was restless. Was always moving. And god Tony wouldn't have it either way. He'd spent hours in that doorway the first couple of nights, just watching. Begging his shaking hands to _stop_ , just for a second. For his chest to accept the oxygen he was trying to get to it. But neither did. So he stood, all night, and watched that tangled mass of blankets until the sun started to rise.

By the third night Tony started to worry he might actually be dying. He was exhausted, but again he'd crept away from Pepper and down the hall to the doorway he knew too well now. He couldn't close his eyes. He just couldn't. And the shaking hadn't stopped. His chest was no closer to recognising the oxygen that he was sucking down with every heaving breath.

He'd been inches from breaking when Steve had rounded the corner across the hall from him.

An excuse had been on the tip of Tony's tongue. He was sure.

 _Left my tablet in the kid's room. Just checking in – thought I heard something. Snapping some embarrassing sleep talking videos for the kid's twenty-first, you can never start too early._

But none of them got through his lips – and even if they had Tony was sure that his voice would have broken so completely that he wouldn't have even finished whichever he'd chosen.

And then Steve was there. Right beside him. Leaning into the kid's doorway, his shoulder pressed up against Tony's as he gazed through the gap in the door Tony had left.

' _He's okay.'_ Steve had murmured, and Tony had nodded. Or tried too. It had probably come off as more of a spasm than a nod. Steve's gaze had shifted. _'You're okay, too.'_

Tony hadn't realized how much he needed to hear that until the words had left Steve's lips.

They had sat together in the hall, each of them resting on either side of the kid's door, in silence for the rest of the night. And then the next, when Tony had found himself at the kid's doorway again Steve was already there, sitting on the floor with his back leant up against the wall. And the next night, and the next, until Tony found himself slowly being able to breathe a little easier. Sleep a little longer. Sure he still checked on the kid, stuck his head through that crack in the door a couple of times throughout the night, but now he could leave. Could close the door and walk back to his bed, to Pepper, and finally sleep.

Sure, he was still shaking a little, and sometimes he dreamt of getting to that ship and finding an even colder body of the table. A still body. A corpse. But then he woke, and he made the trek down to that doorway, looked in, and found he could breathe again.

The kid was okay. And Tony was getting there. Slowly.

And Ross. Ross was still sitting across from him; sipping his hundred-dollar-a-sip scotch from behind his mahogany desk as he stared across at Tony, scowl growing with every passing minute.

"But I wouldn't expect you to understand that." Tony added finally. "Responsibility." He clarified when Ross merely raised a single brow. The man's scowl grew with the word. "As far as I can tell you have never taken it." Tony said, letting his head dip to one side as he took the other man in. "And never will."

Ross scoffed, pulling back in his chair as he stared over at Tony.

"I liked you better when you were a whore, a drunk and weapons dealer."

That brought a small smirk to Tony's lips.

"Easier days."

God. Weren't they.

"What are you doing here, Stark?"

Tony raised his eyes to meet Ross's boring stare.

"I told myself I wouldn't come." He said, honestly again. There was no point in lying now. "I really did." He shrugged. "Cap's still baking – the kid finally has his appetite back, with a vengeance, and Cap's taking full advantage – and I'm currently missing out on a triple breakfast spread." He said, not even having to fake the wistful breath that escaped him. "Finally taking the Hulk waffle maker for a spin."

Ross wasn't so easily deflected.

"But you did come."

Tony said nothing for a moment. Just watched Ross take yet another sip of the scotch.

"I did." He said, eventually. "It's okay. Steve always saves me leftovers. Leaves them in the toaster oven in the lab so Clint can't pilfer them."

"Is that what you came here to tell me?" Ross huffed, not even bothering to hide the distain written in every inch that was left of his face. "That Captain America is now donning an apron and serving at your beck and call?" Hate congealed to loathing in his eyes as Tony sat, silently, and watched. "Congratulations you've domesticated a national war icon."

"Oh, I didn't." Tony shook his head vehemently. "The opposite actually." He heaved out. "His insistence of feeding people is a pain in my ass," He said. "- _Tony, have you eaten?_ _Tony, caffeine is not a substitute for real food. Tony,_ don't _drink that D.U.M-E put motor oil in it again_." Tony said, his Steve impression leaving a lot to be desired, but he confident that the absolutely _need_ to mother hen on the other man's behalf had been done justice. "Can't get any work done anymore – but it's his thing." Tony went on with a flippant wave. "He takes care of people."

' _You're okay, too.'_

' _You're okay, too.'_

Ross let out a snort.

"Yeah," He sneered, leaning his elbows on the desk between them as he moved into Tony's space. "I saw how well he took care of you in Siberia."

Tony should have been more surprised that the words did very little to him. Sure, they stung a little. They always would. But other moments were starting to overtake them. Sitting outside the kid's door with Steve across from him. Sitting at in the lab, waiting, with Steve beside him.

Waiting in the hospital after the attack on the Compound, with the memory of the kid face down in the lake so fresh that he couldn't see anything else, with Steve in the seat beside him; Steve's hands steadying him when he felt like he might fall from the ridiculous plastic chair as they waited for news.

Tony plastered a press-winning smile over his face.

"You should have seen what his face looked like." He preened. "I won't lie, I'm still pretty proud of that." Tony said, smoothing some non-existent lint from his suit jacket as an excuse to look down. He shrugged. "We made mistakes. We're human." When he was sure that he had packed every single one of his conflicted feelings about his relationship with Steve back into the _do-not-touch-except-under-potentially-life-threatening-circumstances_ box in his head Tony looked back up to meet Ross's gaze. "That's what your Accords forget." He said, evenly. Ross took another, slow, sip of the scotch. "Not that it really matters now."

"No?" Ross challenged over the rim of his glass. "If you think that everything that has happened is going to make me drop the case you're wrong. Because nothing happened, Stark." His eyes burned into Tony's, daring him to challenge him. To fight. "Nothing you can prove, anyway, just like you said."

"I know."

Tony savoured the surprise that crossed Ross's face.

"You will sign." The other man went on, but he was clearly caught of guard. Not quite sure what to make of Tony's new calm. And he was calm.

His hands had finally stopped shaking.

"Probably." Tony agreed. "Eventually." He went as far to admit. "The whole team will, I think, once we get them right. Once they really reflect what we are." Tony said, thoughtfully as Ross's astonishment grew with every word. "What we're trying to do."

"And is it that you're trying to do?"

Tony was sure the words were meant as a challenge. A goading, leading question designed to trip him.

Tony answered honestly either way.

"Make a better world than the one we were given."

Ross's brows were in real danger of disappearing into his hairline as Tony continued. "Something you will never be able to do." He said. Ross's glare darkened. "To even conceive of." Tony stared across at the man – at the _real_ reason his chest felt hollow, and his kid, despite his assurances otherwise, was too afraid to stray too far from the Compound – and smiled. Just a little. "You're the problem."

Ross let his glass fall to the desk, his hand wrapped around it so tightly that Tony could count every knuckle. "And let me guess," He hissed, leaning even further across the desk. "You're the solution."

"No." Tony said, his voice still calm. Still level. "I'm the problem solver." He clarified. "There is a difference."

"Really."

"If I were the solution I would have rolled in here with a gauntlet and finished what I started with your nose until there was nothing left to even identify you as a man."

Ross blanched.

The words weren't loud, or angry, or _anything_. But there was truth in them. Consideration even. It had been tempting. So, almost-undeniably, tempting. Almost.

"It's _a_ solution." Tony went on, voice soft and thoughtful as Ross's face grew darker. Rage taking hold. "But not a resolution to our problem."

"And what is _our_ problem?"

Tony stared right back into those eyes and answered.

"You took my kid." He said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. And maybe it was. Everything to do with Peter had been so confusing for so long – what was his place in the kid's life after all? What was the kid's place in all of _this_? In the shit-storm that was coming?

But those four words were the simplest answer Tony had ever given.

"You took my kid."

Ross's fingers tapped against his desk.

"And now you're going to kill me?" He asked, chin rising.

Tony shook his head.

"No." He said, as if it were obvious. Surprised washed over Ross's face. "Where would that get me? A floating prison of my own?" Tony asked, still shaking his head gently. "No. I told you I've got hulk shaped waffles seasoned with patriotism and a kid to get home to." He tapped his forehead lightly. "Problem solver, remember." He smiled. "I don't need to do anything." He murmured. "You've done it all for me."

For the first time since he caught sight of Tony sprawled across the seat opposite his desk fear crept across Ross's eyes.

"Wha-"

"You've had a long career, Ross." Tony started, flexing and then folding his hands together in his lap again. "Hands in more pies than Clint's in a bakery. And you left your mark. Destruction. Death." Tony's eyes lifted to meet Ross's searching ones. "Rage." The word was soft. Ross grew paler. "It would seem you have that effect on people." Tony smirked, just slightly. He could feel that it didn't reach his eyes, however. "It wasn't hard to find – your shady past." Tony went on, his voice considering. "A lot of it is public record now, but buried deep enough, that people don't look. And if they do, wordy enough that they don't really understand what they're reading." Tony tapped at his chest, fingertip connecting with the reactor over and over "But I do." He murmured. "I didn't invent plausible deniability – that was definitely on dear-old-dad – but I sure as shit _perfected_ it." Tony's tone dipped and the last of the blood in Ross's face fled.

Tony's flippant façade had slipped away and there was rage beneath. No fury. Just a consuming sense of calm. Of peace.

And Ross could see it.

"Every weapons company does – and mine was a goddamn empire." Tony went on. "So when I read about military intervention in Albania in the nineties, and scrapped deep-cover escapades in North Korea around the new millennia, I know that I'm looking at international incidents." The words were slow, and quiet. They made Ross lean in further to catch every one. And he did. "At dead Americans, dead civilians, and absolutely no justification because if there were you wouldn't have gone to such lengths to cover it all up." Ross's face twitched, the tension in every line tugging on the swelling around his nose.

Tony leant in, just an inch.

"Just like New Mexico in 2003."

Ross's throat spasmed.

"Twelve dead airmen, and fifty-three civilians." Tony tutted. "A training accident," He breathed, forcing a chuckle through clenched teeth. "Yeah, that was a favourite of mine too." Ross pulled back, violently, pushing himself back against his own chair. Tony ploughed on. "But I can read between the lines – beneath the jargon designed to distract me, and the black-box analyse that showed absolutely nothing wrong with that hanger. Nothing. Other than the fact it was bringing home service men and women with tangible proof that the air strike you had _insisted_ on in Karbala two months earlier had been wrong." Ross had gone still. Completely. "There were no insurgents – just farmers forced to move in groups because of unrest – and you tore them to pieces. And then you brought down a plane to cover it up-"

That – it seemed – was the man's breaking point.

"You can't prove any of that," Ross spat over the desk, but he didn't lean closer. Didn't try to crowd Tony, to intimidate him as he had before. "It was an accident – engine failure in a training run. That's all. That's all-"

Tony nodded along with his words.

"That's all I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, yes." Tony allowed. "And beyond a shadow of doubt is what would be needed to even _request_ an official inquest." The tension in Ross's face eased, just slightly. "But it was enough for me." Tony added. Ross forced a small grin to his lips. "And enough for the families I sent it to."

That grin slipped away.

"You can't do that-" Ross argued, indignantly, as if saying it now would stop Tony from doing what he'd already done, "-those are government documents, you can't-"

"They are over a decade old and unsealed." Tony reminded him, and he fell silent. Begrudgingly. "They're public record now, as I said. Just waiting for the right member of the public to be able to really read them."

"It won't change anything." Ross ground out. "There is no _definite_ proof of wrong-doing." His voice was loud. As if he could drown out what Tony had done by drowning out his voice. "It was an accident." He spat, venom openly flowing from him now. "Just an accident." He moved forward, leaning right over the desk this time until his red face was mere inches from Tony's. "Just like the Raft." He hissed, eyes burning as they bored into Tony's.

Tony should have expected the words that came next. He really should have. But he didn't. And so, when the words spilt through Ross's lips, they hit so deep in his chest that he doubted they would ever leave him.

"And just like the soldiers who wandered into your house and drowned your boy like a dog in the lake."

And just like that Tony was shaking again. His hands were clenched together so tightly now that he could feel blood leaking through them – his fingernails cutting through the flesh of his palms.

"Yeah." Ross breathed, so close now that the air swept across Tony's face. "I know about that." He sneered, relishing in Tony's every strained breath. "Arial audio surveillance was discovered in the inquest." He tilted his head inquisitively. "You know I've always had a modicum of respect for you Stark, you know how to take things like a man." Ross folded his hands on the desk, letting his chin rest in them as he regarded Tony. The false image of calm, but the fire in those eyes was still dancing. "But hearing you _beg_ was pitiful – just like this attempt at intimidation."

Tony's hands loosened in his lap.

"I'm not here to intimidate you."

Ross's eyes hardened. With one swift movement he reached out, snagged the abandoned scotch glass on his desk, and poured the last of it down his throat.

"Then _why are you here_?"

"To watch." Tony murmured. "To see if you'll beg." He forced through his teeth. Ross's face paled again, his brows pulling together. He was starting to sweat. His breath coming in short pants. Tony flexed his hands where they were buried in his lap. "I can't hurt you. The government can't hurt you." He nodded. "All I can do is send what I found to the families you took from – as you nearly took from mine." His tongue darted out to run over his suddenly dry lips. "Twelve dead America airmen and fifty-three civilians in the hotel beneath them." He said, eyes lifting the meet Ross's. The man didn't even flinch. His breathing was definitely taking a turn for the worst though; every heave of his chest looking more painful than the last. "That's a lot of families. A lot of bad blood." Tony pushed on. He had too. "I posted it to them – the detailed analysis of what I found. The lack of any proof of mechanical failure. Your stopover in Bagdad the day before the plane took off. What you stood to gain if they all went away." A tickle had crawled up Ross's throat as Tony watched. He started to cough, his eyes bulging and red as he fought to stay focused on Tony. Once the coughing started it didn't stop. "Posted it all around the world in little white envelopes with your personal office address on the back." Tony murmured as Ross pulled away, grasping for a tissue and holding it against his mouth as he continued to cough. Wet, hacking, coughs now.

Tony just watched.

"Sixty-five little white envelopes," Tony whispered, and Ross blood shot eyes met his. Just for a moment. A moment later they fell to the issue in his hand.

There was blood splattered across it.

"Each sealed in the case of a bottle of 1926 Macallan Scotch."

Ross's eyes drifted back to Tony's. The blood vessels in them had burst, staining the whites of his eyes a vivid scarlet.

Tony meant to look away. Meant to walk away. But he couldn't. Not yet. Not while his hands were still trembling.

"Not cheap," He murmured. Ross's lips twitched, blue encroaching on them as he fought harder and harder to draw in air. Tony's chest, however, felt lighter than it had in days. "But you can't put a price on family."

With one last attempt to draw breath, and one last failure, Ross seized and slid from his chair. He hit the desk on the way to the floor, knocking the glass with him. It shattered against the hardwood floors, shooting across the office. Ross landed in it heavily, the tiny shards biting into his skin. Blood from the cuts dripped to the floor, mixing with the blood oozing from between his lips. Wide, scarlet stained, eyes bore into Tony. Unblinking.

Tony moved slowly.

He stood from his chair and rounding the desk – one foot at a time, _one foot at a time_ – until he was looming over the other man.

He slid to one knee, moving in until his lips were inches from Ross's bulging eyes.

"I warned you." He murmured, lips almost grazing the man's ashen skin. "I warned you that crossing me would be the end of you." Ross reached out, a hand seizing onto Tony's jacket; but the hand was shaking. The grip weak. Tony pulled it away, crushing it within in own. "That if you took him away from me, it would be you and me. Alone. And you would not walk away."

Tony leaned back on his heels, but didn't look away from the man beneath him.

"Medic." He called. The word was cold. Empty. " _Medic_."

There was scrambling on the other side of the door, and then it flew open. The intern from before was standing in the doorway. His eyes bulged further out of his head than Ross's currently were before he turned-tailed and sprinted away. A long screech followed him, and soon the entire hall was in chaos.

Tony seized the last moment they had together, leaning back down until his lips were against Ross's ear.

"Do you want to know the real irony of all of this?" He breathed. Ross's head tilted, just slightly, to catch Tony's eyes. The whites were completely red now. Scarlet rings around the brown irises. Tony's eyes lifted to the still open case of scotch resting on the desk above them. "There are another four identical cases of Macallan in the lobby, with your name on them." His chuckled escaped in a single breath. "Even if every one of the families admitted to it, they'll never know who killed you." Tony breathed, inching closer still until their noses brushed together. "Just you and I will know." Footsteps were pounding down the hall now; mere feet from the doorway. "Just you and I will know what you really did." They thundered inside the large office as Tony pulled away with one last breath. "And what it cost you."

Tony straightened up as a secretary and what looked like a military medical official dropped to the floor beside him, both of them already reaching for Ross.

"He just collapsed," Tony heaved, pulling back until he could climb to his feet behind them. A small crowd had gathered in the doorway. Tony shook his head, "I'm not sure what happened – is he choking?" The first responders ignored him – both too busy when Ross took a final, heaving, gasp and then fell silent. Other's joined them on the ground. A surge of medical personal fighting through the crowd in the doorway just as the first responders started resuscitation attempts.

No one noticed as Tony slipped further back. As he slid into the crowd.

Ross's eyes were still staring, but they were blank now. Empty.

Tony backed out of the office, personal still pushing around him to get closer. To get inside.

Beyond them, in the hallway just outside the office, without a single glance, Tony turned and walked away.

Chest light as the air filling it.

Hands finally still.

* * *

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony had barely stepped a foot out of the elevator before he was running headlong into Peter.

"Kid," he jolted back, hitting the closing elevator doors. It took him less than second to spiral into full panic. "Wha-" _What was wrong? What's happened? Wha-_

"You missed breakfast," Peter said, and Tony's whirring brain jutted to a holt as the kid held out a large plate, filled to capacity with eggs, bacon, waffles and what looked like every other breakfast food known to man. Or Steve. "I was going to bring some down to you." Peter continued, somewhat unsure, when Tony just stared at the overflowing plate. "Natasha said you were working on a problem."

That caught Tony's attention.

"Did she?"

Peter nodded.

"Yeah," He said, something bright, and so unbelievably pure, lighting up in his eyes. God Tony had missed that. "Anything I can help with?"

"No." Tony smiled, wrapping an arm around the kid's shoulders and pulling them away from the elevator. He kept wait for it to be difficult to reach out for the kid again. For the hesitation, and the doubt, to set back in. But it didn't. Every time was almost easier than the last now. "Just a pesky one I've been dealing with for a while." He added, walking the kid towards the kitchen. "Finally fixed it."

"Oh, cool." Peter said, but there was something deflated in his voice that had Tony slowing. Peter glanced up at him, the plate pilled with food clutched close to his chest. "Maybe I could help with something else?"

Tony pulled them both to a stop and moved to face the kid, trying to catch the eyes that were suddenly far too interested in Tony's shoes.

"I'm sure there's a lot you could help with kid," he said, and Peter's eyes flicked up. "But isn't Aunt hotty coming to get you today?"

Peter's nod was jerking. It hurt Tony's neck just to watch. "Yeah," he murmured. "But, I mean, if we're busy she doesn't have to." He shrugged, trying for casual and landing nowhere near the mark. "I mean, you know, if we're working-"

"Peter-"

"Especially if it's important, we can't-"

" _Peter_."

Tony's voice was loud, wasn't harsh, but it was firm. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and Peter was deflecting. Peter's eyes stopped roaming across the floor and the walls, and basically anywhere that wasn't Tony. They locked onto Tony's eyes without hesitation and in them Tony found his answer.

Fear.

"Look at me." Tony pulled the kid to the side of the hall; to a short bench Pepper had insisted he throw into the corridor after the fourth time he kept a senator waiting for over an hour. He pulled the two of them down, keeping one hand firmly attached to the kid's shoulder as he used the other to pull the plate of food away from him. He put it aside. Without it the kid's hands began to clench open and closed, clawing softly at the skin of his palms.

Tony made sure the kid was still looking at him before he started. "If you're not ready to leave, all you have to do is say the word." Tony said, each word careful and slow. The kid had to get this. He was too pale again. Too pale – and the sight caught deep in Tony's chest. "Or not even. Just nod. Sign language. A saucy wink." That drew a strained laugh from the kid. It died as soon as it had come though. "Hey-" Tony moved to catch the kid's eyes again when they fell. "You don't have to be okay." He said. Peter's head shook, just a little. Just enough. "You don't." Tony said again, the words like steel. "You don't have to leave – I'm sure not forcing you out. If you want to hang around for a little while, do." He said. "Hell, if you want to stay forever just give me the word and you and aunt hotty will have a wing before I even finish this mountain." A breathy chuckle escaped Peter's lips again, catching in this throat; but there was hope in his eyes. Relief. Confusion curled in Tony's gut, mixing with the guilt that had settled there. How did the kid not know that? How did he not know Tony would never _make_ him leave? Could never make him leave – could barely stand the thought of it. Tony took a steadying breath that he sorely needed. "You just seemed ready to leave?" He pressed lightly when the kid didn't speak. "You said you wanted to check on Ned, and your girl, and-"

"She's not my-"

"- _the_ girl you are besotted with." Tony plowed over him. The kid turned a vivid scarlet. "You've been _literally_ climbing the walls the last couple of days." He went on. "What's changed?"

That prompted another round of painful looking head shaking.

"Nothing." Peter muttered, clenching his hands together. His eyes darted up to Tony's, just for a second, and then fell again. He heaved in a couple of breaths, lips opening and closing as if he might speak and then didn't. Tony waited. Eventually the silence won out and Tony got his answer.

And god he almost wished he hadn't. Almost.

"Could I-" The kid started, his eyes never leaving the floor. His voice faded until the next words were barely a whisper. "Will I be able to come back?"

All of the air swept from Tony's lungs in an instant.

" _Kid_ -"

"I know that Ross is still a problem – and maybe even more now, but-" the kid rambled over him, words spilling from his lips faster than Tony could comprehend them. "I just – I don't-" The kid's leg was bouncing to hard that the friction of it was going to send it through the floor soon. He clamped a hand over it. Stilling it by force. Tony had to resist the urge to reach over and pull the hand away. The claw like way the fingers were biting into the flesh would likely leave a mark. "I don't want to leave forever." Peter breathed. With a hand still clenched around his leg his eyes slid up. They were glassy. A film of tears that he refused to let fall covering every inch of them. "I don't want to go."

Tony's hand shot out and wrapped around the back of the kid's neck, pulling him closer. His other thumbed away a stray tear that had begun its trek over the kid's cheek, and then settled there. Palm curved around the too prominent cheekbones.

"Oh, kid," Tony breathed. "You're not going anywhere. Not ever." The hand clenched around the back of the kid's neck squeezed gently and another tear fell from the too large, too open, brown eyes. Tony caught that one too. "Believe me you are going to be begging me to let you out of my sight before too long."

"But – before-"

The hand plastered along the kid's cheek fell to his shoulder.

"I was wrong." Tony said. No preamble. No deflection. The kid pulled back, just slightly, or as much as Tony's hands would let him. And it wasn't very far. "I shouldn't have left you out there alone."

The kid was shaking his head again. "I thought – I though, maybe-" he heaved, "Maybe you were disappointed?"

Tony's hands almost slipped away from the kid in pure shock. _Disappointed_?

"Disappointed?"

Peter nodded, slowly this time. His eyes fell. "In-" he heaved in a heavy breath "-me."

Tony froze, the words just not computing.

Peter didn't seem to notice.

"After what happened here when the soldiers came-" he went on quickly, squirming beneath Tony's now manacle like grip. "I mean I wasn't very much help, and then I got myself hurt, and I just thought that maybe you were disappointed that I didn't do more, that I did-"

" _Stop_."

The word tore from Tony's throat.

No. _No_.

Tony used the hand he still had wrapped around the back of the kid's neck to haul him closer, until their knees were crashing together and there was no where else for the kid to look but at him.

" _None_ of what happened, or what followed, was your fault." Tony thundered. The kid barely blinked. "I want to hear you say it." Tony said, eyes boring into the Peter's. "Say it."

"None of what happened was my fault."

The words were barely a murmur. A whisper.

The kid didn't believe them – and that just wasn't good enough.

"Again," Tony barked, and Peter tried to pull away. Tony didn't let him. "Like you mean it." Tony stressed. " _None of what happened, or what followed, was my fault_."

The kid's eyes slid closed, but the words were stronger.

"None of what happened, or what followed, was my fault."

Hesitant. Quiet. But sure.

Tony could live with that. He could work with that.

It was Tony's turn to shake his head, "I could never be disappointed in you, kid." He murmured, the hand he had clasped around the kid's shoulder slipping down until it was resting over the kid's chest. Rising and falling with his too quick breaths. After a moment they began to settle under his hand. "I thought I was bad for you." Tony admitted, and Peter's eyes shot to his, an argument clear in his eyes. Tony spoke again before the kid could. "That all the things that happened – all the people that came for you – did so because of me." Tony forced a smile to his lips, but it felt wrong. Sour. "Turns out I was wrong. You are fully capable of attracting trouble on your own." And god, wasn't that terrifying. How was he supposed to protect the kid form _his own_ goddamn awful luck. "I want you safe kid – that's all I ever wanted – but I'm starting to think that that might be right next to me. So get used to me, because you aren't leaving my sight until you're in your thirties."

The hope in the kid's eyes was crippling

"Really?"

Tony nodded.

" _Really_." He said, giving the kid's neck on last squeeze before he let go. The hand he had rested against Peter's chest stayed where it was though, Tony not quite ready to let him go completely. "Your scrawny butt is going to be back in this Compound on Thursday for lab work and over the weekend for PT with the Cap himself." He said. "It's already been agreed with by your aunt."

Peter's eyes lit up, and Tony felt ten years younger at the sight.

"Lab work?" Peter grinned. "With-with-"

"With me." Tony nodded, and somehow the kid's smile grew despite that his cheeks had to be aching already. "You're my intern – you have to look the part." Tony said. "It wont be every week – I can't promise that, I'm sorry, Pep's already filled my schedule six-ways-from-Sunday – but I'll try." And he would. No more hiding. No more arms distance.

 _Pull him closer_ Rhodey had said, and Tony had every intention of doing so. All of his fears – fears of being a bad influence, of corrupting the kid or overstepping – had all but left him. Sitting alone in that lab waiting for Rhodey to bring a body back to him had washed them all away.

"And when I'm away the team will fill in." Tony went on. "Nat's going to get you familiar with a few different types of hand-to-hand – which is frankly terrifying and if you were at all on the fence about this potentially being an Avenger business now would be the time to pull out – and Brucie-bear is going to help you out with your webbing and all other things gooey that are out of my area." Tony rambled. Peter's eyes somehow got rounder and rounder with each word. "And you're going to keep training with Cap." Tony's voice softened. "He's not going anywhere – the team is going to need some work before we're back to where we were, and he seems ready to commit one-hundred-and-twenty-percent, so he'll be here." Tony made sure he had the kid's eyes before he continued. "We're all here." He said, pointedly. "Clint's already invited you and Aunt hottie for a farm get-away," Peter's face lit up again. "Doesn't sound like much, I know, but his wife – godamn she puts Steve to shame when it comes to baked goods." That brought him a laugh. "Same with Scott – though I'm fairly sure he's a criminal in his own right so we probably won't be taking him up on that." And that a real laugh. "And Rhodes, he's not a vacationer, really, but when he's around he's an excellent guy to chill with. Always got good answers. Is great in a crisis - can confirm." Tony finally let the hand he had resting on the kid's chest fall, but he made sure to keep the kid's eyes. They didn't waver. "What I'm trying very hard, and probably failing, to say is we're hear for you, kid." Tony said, careful to stress every word. "All of us. You're in for life now – you're never getting rid of us."

The ghost of a smile crossed over the kid's lips.

"Mr. Stark?"

"Hmm."

"You're still my favorite."

"Good." Tony nodded sharply, leaning down to scoop up his plate from behind him, and promptly shoving a strip of bacon in his mouth. "Keep it that way."

* * *

Tony's steps echoes on the wooden floor as he made his way into the kitchen. He'd seen Peter off with May only minutes before, watching them disappear all the way out of the Compound with Happy after securing a promise that May would check in with him later tonight. Let him know how the kid was going.

He'd spent the majority of the morning in the lab with the kid, working on this and that, but neither of the suits. Neither of them had broached them, perhaps both of them not quite ready to dawn them yet.

Tony had watched as the town car sped from the Compound, his phone already in hand. News was going to start leaking soon. He needed to know when.

He should have been more worried about what might happen when it did. When the video footage from Ross's office – and there was footage, Tony had seen the cameras in the office – started leaking, who might come for him.

He probably should have been a little concerned about what the others would think. Natasha clearly knew already, and he doubted Clint would have much of a problem with a dead child-abductor, not matter the circumstances of his death. Rhodey would back him. Disapprove, sure, but back him.

Cap.

Cap he wasn't so sure.

Tony paused in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Cheers for the spread, Cap."

Steve's head jerked up from where he was leant over the stove, slowly stirring a spicy-smelling pot whilst pouring over what Tony assumed was the recipe on a StarkPad. Spices were new to Steve – anything more flavoursome than pepper was new to Steve – but he loved them. Loved every single flavour and every single spice. Tony had brought him a spice rack that would have been the envy of some chefs after the first time he'd watched the man fight his way through a green curry. Had cried like a baby, his palate as bland as his khaki collection, but he'd finished the entire bowl. Smiling like a dork through the tears.

That same smile, or a ghost of it, passed over Steve's face; his eyes crinkling, just slightly, at the edges.

"You're welcome." He said, wiping his hands on the kitchen towel beside him and setting the pot to simmer. "The kid kept it safe from Clint? I thought for sure he had him."

Tony huffed out a chuckle.

"Nah, he's young." He said. "Spry. Can hang off buildings, Barton had no chance."

Steve nodded, pulling away from the stove and turning to face Tony fully. He lent up against the island bench and gazed over at Tony.

Silence dragged on a little too long.

"Where were you?"

There was no anger in the question. No demand. Barely even curiosity.

He knew. He knew exactly where Tony had been.

What he'd done.

"Out."

Steve continued to stare at him for a few more seconds, until finally he nodded. His eyes fell to the space between them.

"Are you leaving again?"

 _Did you butcher him in his office? Are they coming for you?_

 _Are you leaving_ us _?_

Tony clicked his tongue flippantly, meandering further into the kitchen and scooping up an apple from the fruit bowl resting in the centre of the island bench.

"Don't plan to." He shrugged. He took a solid bite out of the apple, letting his eyes wander over the bench top as if the marble surface suddenly held a lot of interest for him. It didn't. "You?"

Steve's response was instant.  
"No."

Tony nodded, letting his head tilt up just enough to catch Steve's eyes. They were sincere. Honest.

And gentle.

"Okay then." Tony nodded again. Okay. Cool. Cap down with some good, old-fashioned, albeit convoluted and roundabout, murder when the occasion calls for it. Good to know. "Good."

Tony let his eyes wander as Steve went back to stirring his pot of – whatever it was. The sun had started to set sometime as he was seeing Peter and May off, and now it had disappeared almost entirely. Leaving only small flecks of scarlet glow shining into through the glass wall opposite, streaking across the floorboards.

Tony was watching the final gleams die when his eyes finally focused enough to see it. A figure outside in that dying light.

Wanda.

"She's feeling better." Steve's voice broke Tony for his stare. Tony's eyes flickered back to him. He was staring out at her as well, a sad smile pulling at his lips. "Been awake for a few hours now."

Tony glanced back at her.

"She shouldn't stand out there."

Jesus. The kids on this goddamn team. They were determined to die of hypothermia – and take Tony with them from stress.

Steve set down the wooden spoon he'd been using to slowly stir the pot.

His eyes were back on Tony.

"She's waiting for you."

* * *

"You look better."

Tony came to a stop just to the left of Wanda, looking out, as she was, over the dark mass of the lack and the horizon beyond.

"I feel better."

Tony buried his hands deep in his pockets.

"I never apologised, for what happened – the whole Germany mess, and before it-"

Wanda stopped him before the rambling could really progress. Tony steadied himself. He had done this. He deserved this–

"You don't owe me an apology."

Tony's head shot over to the girl beside him fast enough to leave his brain spinning.

"You never have." Wanda breathed, her voice almost lost to the wind that cut between them. Almost. "I, on the other hand, owe you many." Her eyes finally drifted to his. The amber in them was striking now, the green very nearly drowned out by the golden rings surrounding it. They were captivating. And terrifying. And then they were gone, Wanda turning back to the horizon. "I'm sorry." The words tumbled from her like a prayer. Soft and broken. "For what I did to you." She breathed. "For what I took from you."

Her arms were rigid at her sides, hands pulled back and fingers tense; her eyes never leaving the darkening horizon. Not even blinking.

Tony was at a loss.

He knew how to help Peter, even if he was terrified to try sometimes. To be wrong. But he had least had some clue. Knew how to reach out, how to talk him down, as he had wished once that someone might reach out to him. Might hold him up when he was falling.

But Wanda was beyond him.

He was orphan, as Peter was an orphan, but she was so much more. She was the orphan of war. Of violence and fear that had permeated her life since she was a child. How was Tony supposed to reach out to that? To understand that?

She wasn't Peter – the sweet kid who had seen too much and just _refused_ to back down. He couldn't wipe away her tears or her fears so easily.

She wouldn't cry. Even he could see that. She was beyond that.

And her fears weren't something any of them could wipe away.

"You didn't take anything." Tony murmured.

"Didn't I?" She asked. Tony said nothing, not entirely sure what she meant. And then she clarified, and he knew exactly what. "I took your security." She breathed. "Your peace." Her eyes slid closed as the sun finally disappeared beneath the lake across from them and they were left in shadow. "Filled the gaps within your nightmares with my own."

Tony remembered. Though to say he remembered was not entirely correct. There is no need to _remember_ something that has never left you. Never been far from his mind's eye; and his place upon the corpses of the friends – family – he'd failed had never left him.

His next breath caught in his throat – and it had nothing to do with the cold.

"Was it real?"

He almost didn't want the answer.

"Yes and no." She tilted her head, just slightly, as if trying to see beyond the field of shadows, but her eyes didn't open. "Thing's change." She answered somewhat cryptically. "It was perhaps real then, but not now."

The half-answer did not ease the knot in his stomach.

"Now it's different?"

Those hands, that had been tense and rigid at her sides, clenched together.

"Yes." She murmured, her head dipping forward in a barely noticeable nod. "Now it's different."

Tony nodded as well, casting his own eyes out amongst the shadows.

"But something is coming?"

Her head tipped forward again. Just a fraction.

"Yes." The word was lost to the wind cutting between them. "Something is coming."

Her eyes slid open as Tony watched. The amber in them glistening. Moving. Vibrant and strong.

She stared up at the twisting mass of twinkling suns and darkness that swirled above them now the light had fled.

Tony stared with her.

"What do you see?"

The question slipped from his tongue between one breath and the next.

And for the first time her answer was without hesitation.

"Infinity."

* * *

And there we have it. A year in the making – and what a goddamn year it was. Up, down and all the way in-between in felt like sometimes, but every single one of you who have come this far for me were always constant. Always the reason I sat back down at this computer and muddled on when it was the last thing I wanted to do. You mean the world to me. You give so much joy I can't even describe it. So I hope this chapter brings you joy – a little bit of balm for the bite that was _Endgame_.

So what did you think!? It took me a long time to decide what to do with Ross. And how. What did you think? Were you satisfied? I honestly cannot stress enough how much your feedback means to me! Please tell me! I sat on this chapter from almost the beginning of the story so I'd love to know if you're happy with the way it all worked out!

I'm not sure when, or if, I will write another. I am very much on the fence. I have an idea of another 5+1 that I might write if you were all keen for that? The working title is currently:

 _The 5 times Tony found himself at Peter's bedside, and the 1 time Peter found himself at Tony's_.

I have a couple of ideas already, but if you think you have a good idea that fits, and would like to share it, comment below and I'll give you a special mention if I go with it!

I will forewarn you that there might be a bit of a wait. I am attempting to get into some original writing as well. You have all given me so much love and confidence that I am finally ready to pick it up again and start muddling back through.

Well this ramble has lasted long enough – just like this incredibly delayed fic – so it's time to bid you adieu one last time for this story. I love you all. Until next time.


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